Editorial: From Comintern to Cominform (1947)

Editorial from the November 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist International, formed in 1919 at a time when Lenin and his associates expected the workers of all the leading countries to place Communists in power, continued in existence as an instrument of Russian foreign policy until it was wound up in 1943, presumably because, with problems of the peace settlement ahead, the Russian Government thought it tactful to remove an organisation that was at that time not very useful but was a source of irritation and alarm to the Allied governments.

On October 5th, 1947, the birth of an Information Bureau was announced (named by opponents the “Cominform”), representing the Communist parties of nine countries, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Russia and Yugoslavia. According to the statement issued by the new group (Daily Worker, 6/10/47) it represents “the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, the principal aim of which is to undermine imperialism, strengthen democracy and liquidate the remnants of Fascism.”

It will “elaborate an agreed platform of action” directed against “the main forces of the imperialist camp – against American imperialism, its British and French Allies, the right-wing Socialists, in the first place in Britain and France.”

Again according to the Daily Worker, the communiqué issued by the Cominform “names Attlee, Bevin and Leon Blum among the ‘treacherous leadership’ of the Socialist movement,” It is explained by the Russian Communists that the new organisation “by no means signifies the restoration of a global Communist organisation with a centralized leadership, such as the Communist International represented at the time” (Daily Worker, 11/10/47), but it is evident from the declared objects that the aim is just the same, that of smashing Labour parties as a step towards the conquest of power by the Communist parties in the various countries.

What should be the attitude of workers to the new organisation? Are its aims and methods deserving of working-class support? Is it genuinely a body aiming to defend democracy, to oppose capitalism and imperialism, and to work for triumph of Socialism?

Let us first consider who engineered its formation by what methods. It was formed at a secret meeting in Warsaw in September, held on the initiative of Soviet Russia. The meeting was kept secret, not only secret from the openly capitalist press and capitalist parties of the world but secret also from the working class of the world, including the rank and file members of the Communist parties of the nine countries. The formation of the new body, like the dissolution of the old one in 1943 was decided over their heads and with their knowledge. The rank and file and even the leaders of the British Communist Party only learned of it after its secret decisions had been decided upon. The meeting, moreover, was called by Russian Communist Party officials, acting, of course, on the instructions of the Russian Government. In that country the Government is in the hands of the Communist Party, the membership of which numbers only a very small minority of the population. No political party is allowed to exist except the Communist Party, so that there is no political party to put up candidates in opposition to Communist Party candidates at elections. When, therefore, the Communist Party in this or any other country declares its support for “democracy” that is what they mean by democracy.

From the Socialist and working-class standpoint these dictatorial organisations, arriving at decisions at secret meetings, are wholly evil. Their activities are the antithesis of democracy and their work can only hinder the growth of a genuinely democratic, working-class Socialist movement.

There are, it is true, certain differences between the new organisation and the old. Instead of claiming world-wide scope it is at present limited to nine countries, most of them so placed that the Russian Government is in a position to extract direct and powerful influence on these governments with or without the camouflage provided by the Cominform. Its headquarters are to be in Belgrade, not Moscow, which suggests that the Russian Government will be able whenever it wishes to do so disclaim direct responsibility. As far as influence over the Communist Parties themselves is concerned the actual form taken by the new organisation is not of much account because the Communist Parties invariably toe the line laid down by Russia. They did so under the Comintern and continued to do so when the Comintern was officially abolished.

How little the Communist Parties and the Communist leaders in various countries are able to pursue a line of their own choosing was shown in 1939. The British Communist leaders came out in support of the war against Germany but immediately had to recant, make abject apology, and fall into line with Russian policy. It has been shown again by the Russian Government’s decision to support Jewish immigration and partition of Palestine. In the past the British Communists opposed it, now they must reverse their policy. Speaking in the House of Commons on June 19th, 1936, Mr. Gallacher, Communist M.P., declared: “Palestine can never be a home for the Jews.” He said that the Jews “have been fooled by their politicians who, under the leadership of the Zionist movement and who are the agents for British Imperialism against Arab masses.” He described the revolt of the Arabs against the attempt to set up a Jewish state as “a thoroughly justifiable revolt. It demands the end of immigration of a character which threatens the existence of Palestine.” Likewise a pamphlet published by the Communist Labour Monthly opposed partition as a scheme of British Imperialists. (“Who is Prosperous in Palestine?” 1936, p. 41.)

The Communist Parties are merely the propaganda agents for Russian governmental policy. What they is not a consistent policy based on principle but a policy based on the day-to-day tactics of the Government in its fight against the other imperialist powers.

In home policy there is the same want of principle. They alternatively oppose the Labour Party, saying it is a capitalist party, and support it, saying is a socialist party. In 1929 they described nationalisation as “State Capitalism” and the Labour Party as the “third Capitalist Party” (“Class Against Class,” p. 8), yet now pretend that nationalisation is socialism and ask the Labour Government “how is it that only one industry has been nationalised?” (Daily Worker, 13/10/47.) In 1939 they took the initiative in asking Mr. Churchill to form a National Government along with the Labour and the Liberal parties. When this was done they attacked the Labour Party for associating with Churchill! Then in 1941 when Russia was invaded they supported Churchill and now again discover that he has all along been and enemy of the workers.

The future Socialism depends on the growth of democratic, socialist organisations. The new Cominform, as well as the Communist parties that are at present not affiliated to it, are the enemies of both Socialism and Democracy.

The Moscow New Look (1956)

From the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

More light has been thrown on the methods of the Russian dictatorship by the recent “reinstatement ” of various old guard Communists who were liquidated during the purges of the thirties.

In Hungary, for instance, Bela Kun, the leading figure of the pre-war Communist Party, has been posthumously restored to favour, and hailed as a revolutionary hero who fell foul of “the cult of the individual." 

Tuominen, the former secretary of the Finnish Communist Party, has presented a hair-raising picture of what actually went on during those bloody days of the great purge. He describes, in an article in Uusi Kuvalehti (1) the actual Comintern meeting where Kun was exposed:— 

“One such ominous meeting was convened in the Spring of 1937. Immediately the session began the chairman, Georgi Dimitrov, laconically announced that the case of Bela Kun would be discussed. It was to be presented by Manuilsky, the liaison official between the Comintern and Stalin. Manuilsky began reading from a document. After reading a couple of paragraphs, he asked: ‘Does Citizen Bela Kun recognise this? '

“The word Manuilsky used—'Citizen'—seemed to affect Bela Kun like an electric shock. The rest of us, too, except Dimitrov and Manuilsky, were startled. When the word 'Citizen' had been substituted for 'Comrade' on this sort of occasion, it meant nothing less than a sentence of death. Horrified and pale, Bela Kun mumbled: 'Yes, I do. It is written by myself. It is a circular sent to Communists in Hungary.'

“Kun vainly tried to defend himself against the allegation that he had criticised Stalin and the Comintern: 'This is a vile conspiracy. I did not mean Comrade Stalin, but you, Manuilsky, and Moskvin, who are secretaries and bad Bolsheviks. I do know that Stalin is a member of the presidium and Zhdanov and Yezhov members of the executive committee, but.after all, they seldom attend meetings. They are good Bolsheviks, the best in the world, but you, Manuilsky, you’re no Bolshevik. Didn't Lenin even in exile call you a god-seeker?' This attack made Manuilsky flush with anger. He, too, lost his temper. Trying to keep calm, he started in an ironical vein and said: 'Such a great leader as Citizen Bela Kun considers himself to be shouldn't waste his ammunition on such a small bird as I. But Comrade Stalin is a big enough target even for him, and it’s at Comrade Stalin that he aimed in this circular.'

“. . . We all sat there, silent and horrified, watching this great and strong popular leader fight for his life, and the sharp, poisonous attacks of his executioner. Nobody dared to speak, nobody could think of anything to say. for or against.

"As the fight was beginning to wane, Dimitrov tinkled the chairman's bell, declared the discussion closed, and announced that the case would be referred to a committee of three. Until the case had been fully cleared, Citizen Bela Kun was relieved of all duties in the Hungarian Communist Party and the Comintern. The session was over. Bela Kun was allowed to go, and as he left the hall two N.K;V.D. men took him away. Nothing more was heard of him, and his case was not discussed again at the Comintern meetings. Rumour had it that he had been shot.”

It is interesting to note that Wilhelm Pieck, the East German Premier, and the Italian Communist leader. Togliatti, are mentioned by Tuominen as being present at this meeting. One can realise with what consummate hypocrisy Togliatti and other European Communists now condemn the evils wrought by Stalin’s “personality cult,” after acquiescing in, and being a party to these very evils for all the years of Stalin’s lifetime.

The case of Kun is by no means unique. At the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the old Bolshevik leader, Anastas Mikoyan, resurrected two of the party leaders who disappeared during the great purge—Antonov-Ovsenko and Kossior. It is worth while to observe, however, that Kun and these two were not brought to trial, but merely “disappeared.” The situation with regard to all those who were brought to trial and executed has not yet altered, and Khrushchev’s continued denunciation of “Trotskyites, Bukharinites, bourgeois nationalists and other enemies of the people” is the mixture as before.

It is impossible to predict how far the Soviet Government will carry this “resurrection from the dead” policy, but it seems unlikely that many of the thousands of prominent Bolsheviks who were purged, will be restored to a posthumous position of dignity. The favourable mention of Antonov-Ovsenko is particularly interesting, as he was one of the members of the 1917 Bolshevik Government (Council of People’s Commissars) of whose 15 members only one survived the purge—no prizes for the correct answer! It is highly improbable that other members of this Council, which included Trotsky and Rykov, will ever be commiserated with by the powers-that-be as “innocent victims of the cult of the individual,” as this would in effect deny everything that the Communists have been saying for years about the “truly democratic” nature of the Soviet Government.

Another revealing event is the publication of part of Lenin's so-called political testament. This is the document that the Trotskyists have been publicising for years, but until recently, the Communist party has always denounced it as a forgery. With the publication of that part of the document that criticises Stalin, however, the Communists have in effect admitted the authenticity of the rest of the testament, which singles out five people for praise—Piatakov, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky. The only other person mentioned in the testament is Stalin, who comes in for a considerable amount of criticism and is said to be unfit for the post of General Secretary of the party. Ironically, enough, it is of course only Stalin who survived, the other five being executed or murdered.

Further criticism of Stalin at the 20th Congress came from A. M. Pankratova, the Soviet historian. She condemned Stalin's version of history for its “arbitrary handling of the facts,” for “fostering the personality cult,” and for “poorly reflecting . . . the activities of the Old Bolsheviks, the collaborators of Lenin.” As has been pointed out, most of Lenin's collaborators were either shot, imprisoned or committed suicide, and this is certainly a “poor reflection” on somebody.

The apparent frankness of the 20th Congress in facing up to its problems is in reality just as spurious as the declarations and resolutions of die previous Congresses. When one looks at the record of the Soviet Communist Party Congresses, it can be seen that since the late 20's every resolution has been carried unanimously, and no one has spoken in opposition to a resolution. The 20th Congress is no exception. The statement by Mikoyan that “in the course of about 20 years we had in fact no collective leadership" doesn't really indicate any better state of affairs than when he said at the 19th Congress (1952)—“At the present stage in world history and the history of our Motherland, it is unthinkable to live, build, fight, without thorough mastery of all the new concepts Comrade Stalin has contributed to the Marxist-Leninist science . . . After the 19th Party Congress our party will go forward still more calmly and confidently to the victory of Communism, under the guidance of our leader and teacher, the brilliant architect of Communism, our beloved Comrade Stalin. Glory to the great Stalin!” (Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise.) (2).

It is also worthwhile to note that although the Party Congress is theoretically the democratic organ that determines the party, and eventually, government policy, there has been a strange neglect to hold Congresses at all, and in fact since 1925 the gaps between Congresses have become wider and wider. Although the Party Rules required that Congresses be held annually, the Congresses held since 1925 have been as follows:—1927; 1930; 1934; 1939; 1952 and 1956. (3).

One is led to conclude from all this that the ferment in the Communist parties of the world with regard to “overcoming the cult of the individual” is so much hot air, and merely a display put on for the benefit of those who are anxious to see the Russian bureaucracy placed on a more stable footing. Indeed, it would not be unfair to say that all those former undoubting Communist party members are only having doubts now because Moscow tells them to. 

In spite of all the reassuring speeches of Krushchov, Bulganin and other Soviet leaders, in spite of all their barnstorming “goodwill” tours, and in spite of the alleged restoration of collective leadership, there is fundamentally nothing that has happened since Stalin's death that would lead an intelligent observer to draw the conclusion that shattering changes have been made in the Russian bureaucratic governmental system. The fact remains that a ruling class has been put in the saddle in Russia and the other so-called Communist countries and no amount of juggling with the reins of power of the substitution of one official by another will alter the fact that the Russian workers are fundamentally in the same position as their brother-workers everywhere else—the position of exploited wage-slaves.

Albert Ivimey

1.—New Statesman & Nation, September I, 1956.

2—Pravda, October 12, 1952.

2—Stalinist Russia, T. Cliff, p. 97.

Editorial: Inglorious End of the Comintern (1943)

Editorial from the June 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twenty years ago the working class of a war-weary world were presented with what claimed to be a quick way out of their submerged position. A new International had been formed in Russia under the guidance of the Bolshevik leaders which was to cut adrift from the old bad reformist Second International. Its birth was heralded by vituperation of the persons and parties forming the Second International, and one of the central charges against the latter was that they had entered willingly into the war. All wars were stigmatised as attempts to further the imperialist ambitions of capitalists of different democratic nations. The new group, the Third International, was to be genuinely representative of working-class aspirations and opposed to all capitalist interests.

But time has had its little joke, and the Third International has been disbanded so that the interests of capitalist democracies may not be hindered in another great war.

The Comintern has succumbed to the needs of Russian foreign policy in World War No. 2. The ideas on which it was based—chief among them being the illusion that the workers of the world in 1919 were ready for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism—have long since been abandoned. Why then did the organisation outlive the ideas which once inspired its adherents? The answer in brief is that it was an instrument of foreign policy of the Russian State. Whatever policy the Russian Government pursued from time to time was blindly and enthusiastically supported in each country by the Communist Party there. If this instrument once had its uses to the Russian Government, there came a time, with the rise of German military power, when new conditions demanded a new instrument. In 1935 the Russian Government sought safety by entering the League of Nations (formerly denounced as a thieves' kitchen) by aiming at an alliance with Powers that might have the strength and the interest to oppose re-armed Germany. To aid this policy of contact with the democracies the Russian Government also, in 1930, introduced a new “democratic" constitution. The continued existence of the Comintern was however an obstacle to the policy of alliances. Powerful groups in Britain, France and America continued, even after the outbreak of war in 1939, to fear the “subversive" activities of the Moscow-directed Communist parties. This last act of formally burying the Comintern is designed to remove this obstacle. As the Manchester Guardian (May 24th) remarks, “it is plain that the dissolution has been ordered to improve relations between Russia and the other Allies, the United States in particular."

During recent years, and particularly since the German invasion in 1941, Nationalist feeling has been officially encouraged in Russia by every possible means, and internationalism has been less and less featured in Russian Government and Comintern propaganda. The dissolution of the Comintern, which marks the delayed burial of Lenin's theories of international working-class action, therefore comes fittingly just after a May Day manifesto issued in Moscow which directed its appeal to the “patriots" of the European countries, urging them to unite against the Fascist enemy. Marx's famous appeal. "Workers of all Lands, Unite.” this gives place to an appeal to the workers of one group of countries to unite in the name of patriotism against workers in other lands.

We do not assume that this will be the end of the British Communist Party. If, helped by this new departure, they can increase their membership and influence inside the trade unions, and possibly the Labour Party, they will be able, more effectively than before, to give support to policies in line with those of the Russian State. Freed from the incubus of being openly directed from Moscow, the British Communist Party may well be able for a time to gain members and influence by a reformist programme, and thus rival the I.L.P. in its heyday.

The dissolution came like a bolt from the blue to the Communist parties of the world, who were not consulted beforehand. It was endorsed by the leaders of the English Communist Party without consulting the membership. The sheepish membership, both high and low, accepted the verdict of virtual death. Thus the Third International died, as it was born and lived, a dictatorial organisation incapable, for this very reason, of solving any of the basic problems of the working class.

The tragic side of the final phase is the fact that the aspirations of myriads of genuine adherents to the working-class movement for freedom are buried in this grave of hopes and illusions.

Who are the Democrats? (1970)

From the March 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism cannot be established until and unless a majority of the class of wage and salary earners want and understand it. Most workers now support capitalism so the immediate task of socialists is to convince other workers that they are wrong to support capitalism and to persuade them that Socialism is the only solution to the problems they face. All that now prevents the establishment of Socialism is this lack of socialist understanding among the working class, and such understanding can only come about as a result of the successful propaganda activities of a socialist party. The best conditions for socialist propaganda and for the growth of socialist understanding is the limited political democracy of capitalism. This is the main reason why the Socialist Party of Great Britain has always stressed the importance both to the socialist movement and to the working class of the freedom to express ideas.

The classic statement of our case against the suppression of opinion appeared in the Socialist Standard in February 1941 in an editorial on the banning of the Daily Worker the previous month.

  True to our basic principle we do not support suppression of opinion, however false we believe that opinion to be. We have always thought and always said that the activities of the Communist Party have been a continual menace to the Socialist movement and the interests of the workers . . . All the same the S.P.G.B. is opposed to suppression of opinion. In our view the way to counter any kind of propaganda, and in the long run the only way, is to meet it in the open in unfettered discussion. We are entitled to add that we practise what we preach and have always thrown open our platform to our opponents.

We stand by this today and still open our platform to all our opponents to state their case against Socialism. However, some of our opponents take exception to our debating other of our opponents. The ragbag of assorted trotskyists, maoists, castroists, etc, etc., known as “the left" have taken us to task for opposing in public debate racialist parties like the National Front and Mosley’s Union Movement. And not only do they criticise us for this, but they have tried to prevent us doing it.

Most of their arguments for doing this can be traced back to the mistaken theory of fascism concocted by the Comintern in the 1930’s in order to further the foreign interests of state capitalist Russia. In 1935 the Russian government began to work through the League of Nations for an alliance with Britain and France against Germany, Italy and Japan. The role the overseas “communist” parties were to play was to win support of workers in Britain and France for an alliance with Russia. This, however, had to be justified in pseudo-Marxist terms. Hence the theory that fascism served the interests of the “most reactionary” sections of finance capital. This paved the way for an alliance with “less reactionary” capitalist parties (and States) against the fascists.

The singling out of the fascists for special opposition using methods (like breaking up meetings and threats of physical violence) not used against other capitalist parties is thus a left-over from the pre-war foreign policy of the rulers of state capitalist Russia. It amounts to a policy of compromise with capitalism. It encourages illusions about ‘‘the lesser evil”, thus pointing to a policy of support for one capitalist party against another.

1942 edition

The analysis of what fascism was and how to combat it made by the Socialist Party of Great Britain was naturally different from that of the Russian government:

  Fascism does not exist in the blue of the heavens: like every other social phenomenon, it is related to, and has its origin in, a social background. And that background is the democratic capitalism that “popular fronters” and other exponents of working class compromise with capitalism, wish to administer. That capitalism inevitably gives rise to working class problems has already been mentioned: but with equal inevitability it also gives rise to problems of a specifically capitalist nature, such as maintaining the profitability of production; securing new, and retaining old markets; the necessity of forging “national unity" when faced with war with rival capitalist groups, etc. And it is precisely in an attempt to solve these problems that the ruling class has recourse to Fascism. That these problems can be permanently solved is precluded by the nature of the capitalist system itself; but that will not prevent the capitalists from making the attempt where no other means will serve. Fascism, then, is a political form best adapted to meet the needs of certain contemporary capitalist states. 

   As long as the working class supports capitalism and capitalist policies, it will be tempted ultimately to give its support to that policy best calculated to meet the political and economic needs of capitalism—even though that policy may be fascist. 

  Democracy for the working class can only be consolidated and extended to the extent that the working class adopts a socialist standpoint. To renounce Socialism so that democracy may be defended, means ultimately the renunciation of both Socialism and democracy (Questions of the Day, 1942 edition).

The way to oppose fascism then was to continue to campaign for Socialism. To do otherwise, to abandon Socialist propaganda for mere anti-fascism, was dangerous for, as we pointed out, ‘‘provided the ‘fascist menace' is real, the formation of a bloc of non-socialist antifascists does not impede the advance of Fascism, but if anything, serves to expedite its progress".

Of course fascism is not a threat in Britain today, but if it were the policy of those who try to stop us putting up a socialist opposition to racialist and fascist parties would be helping it on. Besides, many of ‘‘the left” are themselves advocates and defenders of dictatorship ; they aim to seize power and set up a state capitalist dictatorship in Britain along the lines of those they support in Russia or China or Cuba or Yugoslavia or Algeria or Egypt, etc. etc. But even though they, like the fascists, are a threat to democracy we still say they should be allowed to express their obnoxious views and we are equally prepared to debate them as we are the National Front and the Union Movement.

Fascism as history (2019)

Book Review from the May 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Marxists in the Face of Fascism: Writings by Marxists on Fascism from the inter-war period’. Edited by David Beetham (Haymarket Books. 2019. 380 pages)

In his introduction to this reprint of a book that first came out in 1984, the editor points out that fascism is not a contemporary threat as historical conditions are not the same as they were between the last century’s two world wars. The word ‘fascist’, however, is still frequently bandied about today and not just by ‘anti-fascists’ as it has come to be used to describe any authoritarian individual or action. It was even misused at the time, as Togliatti, a leader of the Italian Communist Party pointed out in 1928 in one of his articles reprinted here: ‘It has become customary to use it to designate every form of reaction. (…) [W]henever the so-called democratic freedoms sanctified by bourgeois constitutions are attacked or violated, one hears the cry: “Fascism is here, fascism has arrived.”’

The book is a collection of articles from the period by mainstream Communists, dissident Communists, and Social Democrats. The original fascists were the followers of Mussolini who came to power in Italy in 1922 but the word was soon used to describe any reactionary, openly anti-working-class movement anywhere. The official Comintern line was that fascism was a mass mobilisation of the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ to further the interests of ‘finance capital’ that arose because of the failure of other countries to emulate the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in Russia in 1917. After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 it was seen as a particular threat to Russia whose foreign policy interests the Comintern was committed to defending.

Despite what Togliatti said, the Comintern did describe, as can be seen from their writings here, any policy of attacking working class living standards as ‘fascist.’ It was on this basis that, for a period, they denounced the Social Democrats as ‘social fascists’ because, when in government on their own or in coalition, they felt they had no choice but to support such a policy. As Otto Bauer, the leader of the Austrian Social Democrats quoted in the introduction, said in its defence: ’if you won’t create a socialist society, then you must do nothing to disturb the mechanism of the capitalist order, under pain of economic catastrophe.’

It was not until 1933 that fascists (though that is not what the Nazis called themselves) came to power in Germany. The myth has grown up that this could have been prevented if only the Social Democrats and Communists had united to oppose it. This did not happen as the Communists had only just stopped calling the Social Democrats ‘social fascists’, while the Social Democrats pursued the policy of ‘tolerating’ as the lesser evil any government as long as it didn’t include the Nazis. This policy failed as the non-Nazi right-wing parties did eventually allow Hitler to come to power constitutionally.

In Austria the Social Democrats did pursue, as Bauer pointed out, the different policy of refusing to ‘tolerate’ any government that didn’t include them. But they too were crushed, though by a different reactionary group to the Nazis. It was left to Kautsky to make the point that, as the Social Democrats and Communists together still represented only a minority of the population, there was not much they could have done to stop a government in control of political power and enjoying majority acquiescence.

It has to be said that the Social Democrats represented here, Bauer and Kautsky in particular, came up with a better analysis than the Communists. In fact it is surprising how ‘Marxist’ they were compared to the Leninists. Apart from Togliatti, the official Communists (who like the fascists also stood for a totalitarian, one-party dictatorship) didn’t have much interesting to say, while the dissident Communists Trotsky and Thalheimer only confused things by irrelevantly describing ‘fascism’ as a form of ‘Bonapartism’ (after Napoleon’s nephew who ruled France as dictator between 1852 and 1870).

Bauer, in the last article he wrote before his death in 1938, saw what was coming and why:

  With the new division of power brought about by the treaties of 1919 British and French imperialism achieved their war aims, and since then they have successfully defended the position of power won by conquest in the war. The imperialism of Great Britain and France is the imperialism of the satisfied, of the satiated. For this reason it is conservative and peaceful. In Germany and Italy, in contrast, there developed an aggressive, warlike imperialism, which seeks to revise the global distribution of economic and political power.

This is one reason why fascism was a product of a specific period of twentieth-century history which is highly unlikely to be repeated, however much some may still cry ‘fascist’.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: From Comintern To Cominform (1997)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Parties are merely the propaganda agents for Russian governmental policy. What they preach is not a consistent policy based on principle but a policy based on the day-to-day tactics of that Government in its fight against the other imperialist powers.

In home policy there is the same want of principle. They alternatively oppose the Labour Party, saying it is a capitalist party, and support it, saying it is a socialist party. In 1929 they described nationalisation as “State Capitalism” and the Labour Party as the “third Capitalist Party” (“Class Against Class,” p. 8), yet now pretend that nationalisation is socialism and ask the Labour Government “how is it that only one industry has been nationalised?” (Daily Worker, 13/10/47.) In 1939 they took the initiative in asking Mr. Churchill to form a National Government along with the Labour and the Liberal parties. When this was done they attacked the Labour Party for associating with Churchill! Then in 1941 when Russia was invaded they supported Churchill and now again discover that he has all along been and enemy of the workers.

The future Socialism depends on the growth of democratic, socialist organisations. The new Cominform, as well as the Communist parties that are at present not affiliated to it, are the enemies of both Socialism and Democracy.

(From editorial, Socialist Standard, November 1947)

Heroine and Victim (1975)

Book Review from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before and After Stalin, by Aino Kuusinen. Michael Joseph, £3.50

The days of my youth were spent mainly in Moscow, the throbbing heart of Revolutionary Russia.

In those days, a few years after the revolution, we frequently saw, though always in the background, at the huge "Comintern" building, or more often at the notorious "Lux" hotel (where we all lived) a stunningly beautiful young woman, who made most of the film stars and sex-symbols look like catsmeat; ash-blond hair, blue eyes, cream-and-roses complexion. "Who's that?" we would enquire, eagerly agog with male curiosity. "Oh! that!" was the reply. "That's Otto Kuusinen's wife." And who, you may well ask, is Otto Kuusinen?

Otto Kuusinen, dear reader, was the supreme Stalinist toady. General Secretary of the Executive of the Communist International from its inception in 1919 till Stalin killed it in 1936. The shadow behind every intrigue and plot to destroy rivals, whether Trotsky or his own native erstwhile comrade Karl Manner; who never put his own signature to a document but always had a front-man to carry the can. Indeed the ultimate intriguer, who watches his wife endure eighteen years in Stalin's labour camps, who refused to utter a word when his own son was imprisoned and shot, and whose daughter only escaped Dracula Stalin by luck; during all of which he kept dead silent. The only "foreign communist" who made it to the Vice-Presidency of the Soviet Union and the eventual membership of the holy of holies, the Polit-Bureau of the Party: after all the others had been shot.

This book Before and After Stalin by Aina Kuusinen his life unwittingly tells his story.

In 1930 she was sent by her old man (as secretary of the Comintern) to America to help the gang at the head of the American Communist Party to nobble the funds and buildings of the Finnish Immigrant Workers' Clubs. It never succeeded and she eventually refused to do it. Returning to Moscow she was amazed to be ordered to Tokyo to establish herself as a Soviet agent.

There she encountered the most notorious double agent of all time, Richard Sorge, the villain who worked for Stalin while reporting to Hitler as Tokyo correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung. Sorge actually telegraphed advance information of the German invasion to Stalin, who in his conceit ignored it.

Her book is all the more impressive for its forbearance and toleration. So far from denouncing, she tries to "explain" him and his actions, by references to the political environment in which he worked. She calmly records endless interrogation and indignities. She was slung in a cell in the dreaded Lubyanka prison; the top torturers of the NKVD gave up after long interrogations [failed] to make her sign phoney "confessions".

At the age of seventy, she describes how she was finally "rehabilitated" after Stalin's death, released and arrived back in Moscow without money, adequate clothing, identity cards, job, food or shelter. She wrote to the General Secretary of the Communist Party walked into the office with the letter and was told to wait outside on the pavement, in the depths of a Moscow winter.

Her book carries the ring of truth. It is an inspiration for generations to come, who will one day break the chains of the foul Russian Bolsheviks' dictatorship.

Horatio

Return to Labour (1972)

From the May 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The concluding article in our series on the early history and ideas of the British Communist Party

One of the main political events of 1932 in Britain was the breakaway of the ILP from the Labour Party. Until July of that year the ILP had been a constituent part of, and indeed had played a key role in establishing and maintaining the Labour Party. Its secession reflected the feeling of disillusion with the failure of the Labour Party's reformism which had been demonstrated by the collapse the previous year of the Labour government amid a record number of unemployed and with their leader going over to the Tories.

The ILP breakaway had no effect on the attitude of the CPGB to the ILP and its members. Which is not surprising since no authorisation for any change had come from Moscow. But at the 12th Plenum in September Gusev denounced the British party's attitude to the ILP as "right opportunist lagging behind the mass movement". The Party, in other words, had failed to realise that the breakaway of the ILP represented a leftward trend amongst working class militant and so had failed to take advantage of this.

"Right opportunism", as we saw, is in Bolshevik jargon the opposite of "Left sectarianism" and since in this period the Comintern was abandoning the old "sectarian" line it was on the face of it odd that a Party should be accused of "right opportunism". But an incident in 1932 well illustrates what "right opportunism" was. The victim was ex-SLP man, J. T. Murphy, a local Communist leader with a trade union following in the factories of eastern Sheffield. At this time the CPGB was pursuing an anti-militarist policy and had raised the slogan "Stop the Transport of Munitions". Murphy was against this and suggested as an alternative "Credits for the Soviet Union". In fairness Murphy really was guilty of opportunism be- cause the factories of eastern Sheffield where his followers worked were munitions factories -an interesting example of how Communist trade union leaders had built up their following for industrial rather than political reasons.

The Comintern order to co-operate with and try to win over the members of the ILP was conveyed to the 12th Congress of the Party in November 1932. "The basic task", said Pollitt, "is a definite turn in our united front work, to drawing in ILP workers in every phase of united front activity". The ILP leaders, however, continued to be denounced as "the most dangerous reformists in this country" who were trying "to build a barrier between the leftward workers and the CP" (The Road to Victory, Pollitt's Speech to the 12th Party Congress).

Four months later, however, in February 1933 the CPGB, following another lead given by the Comintern, called for united action with Labour, the TUC, the Co-operative Movement and the ILP. The "United front", the Comintern had decreed, was to be extended from co-operation with workers who were members of other workers parties to co-operation with those parties themselves. What had caused this change of line was Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor at the end of January 1933. This represented a failure of the policies pursued by both the Social Democrats and the Communists to stop the rise of fascism. The Labour Party, needless to say, turned down this appeal with contempt but the ILP had agreed and in May a kind of non-aggression pact between the ILP and CPGB was concluded. This alliance was to prove highly embarrassing to the CPGB since they were moving rightwards while the ILP continued moving leftwards. The ILP, said Bell, "subsequently tried to break up the united front by making anti-Soviet Trotskyist attacks upon the USSR and the Communist International" {p.152). Actually, what was happening was that both the Trotskyists and the Communists were trying to take over the ILP by the dishonest policy of boring from within.

The Communist Party, we said, was continuing rightwards. A curious feature of this was that each step in this direction was justified by saying that the final revolutionary crisis was getting nearer. Bolshevik ideology, we saw earlier, demanded that any change in "tactics" had to be justified by a change in the "objective" situation. Since the VIth World Congress of the Communist International in 1928 authorised the "left" turn its EC had met four times. Each time it authorised a move away from "sectarianism" and each time this was justified by saying that the final crisis was getting nearer. Thus the 10th Plenum of the ECCI held from July to September 1929 predicted the imminence of a world economic crisis. The 11th Plenum held at the end of 1931 declared that the crisis was deepening {and authorised a revival of the united front tactic, but "only from below"). The 12th Plenum in September 1932 spoke of a transition from the economic to a revolutionary crisis {and again ex- tended the united front). The 13th Plenum in December 1933 declared that times were even nearer to a revolutionary crisis; at any moment the revolutionary crisis could come; the capitalists were abandoning democracy for fascism; the slogan "Soviet Power" should be raised by all Communist parties. In response the British party republished in March 1934 the thesis of the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920, the previous occasion the Bolshevik leaders had hysterically predicted an immediate world revolution.

This demand of the 13th Plenum to step up "united front" tactics amounted to a demand to intensify the struggle for immediate demands under the leadership of the CPGB. From the beginning of 1934, however, as the Russian government re-thought its foreign policy, there were so many changes in the Comintern's line that the British Party was unable to keep up with them.

In February 1934 it was urging workers to vote against both the Tories and the Labour Party in the London County Council elections and in March put up a candidate against the Labour nominee in a parliamentary by-election in Hammersmith. "A third Labour government", it was said, "means only betrayals" (One Million London Workers to Welcome Hunger Marchers!, February 1934). Harry Pollitt declared that there was "no contradiction between being associated with the other parties in united front activity against capitalist attack, and opposing the same parties in elections" (Daily Worker, 19 March, 1934). As late as 9 August the Daily Worker was still arguing that for the Communist Party to extend the united front to electoral activities would be "renouncing its revolutionary policy and programme . . . This it cannot do and remain the workers' party. Therefore it opposes Labour Party and ILP candidates whenever possible". Less than two weeks later, on 21 August, the Daily Worker was reporting that the French Communist Party had concluded just such a deal with the Social Democrats there! The significance of this was not lost on the leaders of the British party and by the time the February 1935 local elections came round their policy had again shifted. Now they were prepared to back any Labour candidate who supported the united front. Harry Pollitt had the unenviable task of explaining this shift to the delegates at the Party's 13th Congress in February .The already bewildered delegates were treated to the now familiar excuse:

“The question has been raised: 'Do our new tactics in the elections imply that the previous line of the Party was wrong?' This question principally arises from our in- ability to understand that the application of the tactical line and policy of the Communist party is always adapted to the immediate concrete situation and needs to be changed as the situation changes, with its subsequent changes in the working class movement” (A Call To All Workers, 13th CPGB Congress, February, 1935).

Pollitt went on to speak of this leading to the conditions for "sweeping away the National Government, returning of CP MP's and a Labour Government".

This was in fact way to the right of the new programme For Soviet Britain adopted at the Congress. This had been drafted before Pollitt was ordered to do his about-turn and still reflected the policy of the 13th Plenum as far back as December 1933! After the Congress the old slogan of "Down With the National Government" was replaced by a call for a "Third Labour Government", though unqualified support for all Labour Party candidates had yet to come. In June the CPGB offered to form a United Communist Party with the ILP, but this was just a way of withdrawing its members who had been boring from within the ILP since by now the ILP was regarding the CPGB as a little moderate for them.

By the middle of 1935 the Russian government had decided on its new foreign policy: to seek the support of "democratic" France and Britain against "fascist" Germany. A full Congress -the 7th -of the Communist International was summoned in order to let the various Communist parties know what the new line was. "In the mobilisation of the toiling masses for the struggle against fascism", Georgi Dimitrov, hero of the Reichstag fire, told them, "the formation of a broad people's anti-fascist front on the basis of the proletarian united front is a particularly important task". Unity of action against fascism, he went on, must lead to political unity, to one working class political party in each country.

Their instructions clear, the leaders of the British party returned from Moscow and called a special Party Congress. The old programme For Soviet Britain adopted earlier that year was quietly forgotten and a call for a Labour government substituted. From then on the Communist Party gave unqualified support to the Labour Party; it backed all the Labour candidates, not just left-wingers, in the November General Election and soon applied for affiliation -only to be rejected of course, with some pointed reminders about their previous policy and the lack of democracy in Russia. In accordance with Dimitrov's instructions the Party went patriotic, dropped its anti-militarist line and cut out the subheading of the Daily Worker which read "Organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Section of the Communist International)".

The end of 1935 is a good place to stop in our early history of the Communist Party of Great Britain since this party's present policy is substantially the same as it had then become: support for the Labour Party and a Labour government. There is one difference, however, the Communist Party now puts up candidates against the Labour Party. How long it will take them to drop this inconsistency remains to be seen.

(concluded)

Adam Buick

The Pendulum Swings Back (1972)

From the April 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fourth in our series on the early history and ideas of the British Communist Party

The Communist International, or Comintern, was a valuable political asset to the rulers of state capitalist Russia. It was also a financial investment since they spent considerable sums subsidising Communist parties abroad. The Comintern was useful to them because it could be used as an adjunct to Russian foreign policy. But to do this it had to have some following in the countries Russia wanted to influence. So, although there were very real political reasons for the policy of "independent leadership", its disastrous effect on the membership and influence of Communist Parties throughout the world was bound to lead sooner or later to a re-assessment of the whole policy.

This is what did happen though gradually and it was not until the end of 1934 that the pre-1928 position was again reached. Though this time it did not stop there but kept on going to the right till by 1939 the CPGB was a chauvinist body calling for an alliance of all anti-fascist elements including those in the Tory party.

Using the word in its Bolshevik sense the CPGB was at its most "sectarian" in the years 1930 and 1931 following the Leeds Conference in December 1929. This was during the depth of the slump with a helpless Labour government in power. The Communists' denunciations of the Labour Party and the trade unions as anti-working class found a ready hearing amongst some of the unemployed, who provided the bulk of the members and supporters of the party in this period.

During this period the Communists were, literally, violently opposed to the Labour Party. The Daily Worker, which was launched in January 1930, carried that very same month a call from Harry Pollitt to physically break-up Labour meetings:

“There should not be a Labour meeting held anywhere, but what the revolutionary workers in that district attend such meetings and fight against the speakers, whoever they are, so-called 'left', 'right' or 'centre'. They should never be allowed to address the workers. This will bring us into conflict with the authorities, but this must be done. The fight can no longer be conducted in a passive manner” (29 January).

This kind of talk and action earned the Communists the reputation of being anti-trade union also. This was a valid criticism, not in the sense that the Communists were opposed to workers putting up a fight on the industrial field but in that of urging workers to conduct this fight outside the unions and under the leadership of rival bodies set up and led by the Communists. For the policy of “independent leadership" was to apply on the industrial as well as on the political field.

The Comintern's policy involved withdrawing not only from the Labour Party but also from the reformist trade unions whose bureaucracy was said to be actively aiding the capitalists to crush the workers. Instead the Communists were supposed to set up rival "red unions". This policy may have made some sense in Europe where the workers had a tradition of being organised on political or religious lines but in Britain it was madness. For one lesson the workers of Britain had learned was trade union unity, a lesson embodied in the slogans "Unity is Strength" and "United We Stand, Divided We Fall". Trade and occupation, rather than politics or religion, were recognised as the proper bases for organisation on the industrial field.

But faced with the Comintern instructions the CPGB had to make a show. They did manage to set up two "red" unions -the United Mineworkers of Scotland and the United Clothing Workers Union. The Scottish coalfield had a tradition of splits and breakaways which the Communists were able to draw on. The clothing workers' union was a breakaway of the London members of the Garment Workers Union under the popular Sam Elsbury who were dissatisfied with the timid attitude of the union's national leaders.

For the rest the policy of "independent leadership" relied on what was left of the Minority Movement and on so-called Workers' Committees the Communists set up in the factories and mines and during strikes as would-be rivals to the established unions.

The MM, which had been the vehicle of Communist pressure on the TUC in the mid-twenties, issued its own membership cards and so could be regarded as a kind of union, though it was never involved in negotiations with employers or in calling strikes. In any event, this was how the Communists chose to regard it. For instance, the Seamen's Minority Movement was an attempt to organise a rival to the National Union of Seamen. When in the summer of 1930 the CPGB decided to launch a "Workers' Charter" in a bid to gain a mass following the MM was used. The Charter, with obvious historical significance, had six points such as higher unemployment pay, against speed-up, against increased national insurance contributions, repeal of the Trades Disputes Act - ordinary reforms. Actually the Party's own programme went further forClass Against Class called for a national minimum wage of £4 a week while the Charter only demanded £3. But then consistency was not something the Communist Party could ever be accused of.

The other expedient, workers' councils or committees, were set up especially during strikes. So, for instance, when the textile workers of Lancashire and Yorkshire or the South Wales miners went on strike there were two strike committees - the official union one and its Communist rival. Needless to say, the Communists represented no-one but themselves. The result was the dread "isolation from the masses" and an unenviable reputation for wrecking tactics.

As we saw, it was not as wreckers that Communist trade unionists had built up their following, but as militant union members. They were thus in a difficult position, torn between loyalty to the Party's wrecking line and loyalty to their fellow workers in the unions. The fates of Arthur Horner and Sam Elsbury illustrate this dilemma.

Horner was a prominent and very active member of the South Wales Miners Federation. Up until 1929 he was on the Central Committee of the CPGB, being one of those excluded for refusing to wholeheartedly endorse the "left" turn. It was clear that after the line was changed Homer was going to be singled out as an example of how a Communist should not behave. In 1929 he opposed continuing unofficially a strike which the SWMF had decided to call off because it had no chance of success. For this he was accused of capitulating to the union bureaucrats, a heresy that was labelled "Hornerism". Homer, however, was not the sort of man to take this lying down. He appealed to the Political Bureau and then to the Central Committee and finally, as the dispute dragged on into 1930, to the Communist International. Anxious not to lose so popular an industrial leader, the Comintern ruled that Horner was wrong but that the CPGB was also wrong to inflate this into “Hornerism". Horner was satisfied, or at least he stayed in the Party. But the policy of "independent leadership" was again to try his patience in March 1931. During a strike of Welsh miners the Communists had applied their policy of setting up their own strike committees. Horner wrote to Moscow denouncing this saying it resulted "only in our isolation". The Communist Party, he went on, was "effectively bankrupt from every angle" (Daily Worker, 10 March, 1931). Strong words! Hornerism was rearing its head again. By now the Comintern had had time to see the disastrous effects of their 1928 policy and Homer's letter must have played a part in bringing about the relaxation of "independent leadership" that was allowed at the end of 1931. There was speculation at the time that Homer would set up a rival Communist Party less given to wrecking tactics but in the end he again stayed a member.

The policy of "independent leadership" succeeded in wrecking one of the two "red" unions - the United Clothing Workers Union under Sam Elsbury. Elsbury, who had been London organiser of the old union, was the secretary of the new union but had to take his orders from the CPGB. Those orders involved calling strikes whenever the slightest excuse arose with little or no regard for the chances of success or for the finances of the union. This led to one of the more sordid episodes in the history of the British Communist Party. In order to get Elsbury to call a strike on one occasion in 1930 the Party promised £400 for union funds which otherwise could not have borne the burden. Promised such financial support the men went on strike, but the money was not forthcoming and they had to return to work defeated with their union organisation at the factory in ruins. This was too much for Elsbury. He resigned from the Communist Party denouncing its methods. This the Party was not prepared to accept - nobody resigned from a Bolshevik party! - and expelled him instead, using the childish trick of backdating his expulsion to the day before he wrote his letter of resignation. Elsbury was viciously denounced and, needless to say, was driven out of his union job also. While Horner remained a lifelong Communist and went on to become General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, Elsbury later became a Labour councillor in the east end of London. He was able to get his own back on the CPGB for its shabby treatment of him when in 1937 he won a libel action that caused the withdrawal of an official history of the Party written by Tom Bell.

The 11th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) that met at the end of 1931 decided to call a halt to this disastrous policy. "Sectarianism" and the "isolation" it caused were denounced. The sort of reputation the CPGB had got can be gathered from comments made at the 12th Plenum in September 1932 when the beneficial results, influence-wise, of the new turn were discussed. .'Our party", declared Comintern-man Gusev, "was not popular amongst the organised workers because it had obtained a firm reputation for being against the trade unions". Pollitt admitted:

“Wrong formulations on this question of the trade union movement have given the impression that we are out to smash and disrupt the trade union movement.”

The British Party began the process of picking up the pieces with its 1932 "January Resolution" which echoed the new Comintern line. As described by Bell (Communist historians are not reliable except as a guide to what at the time of writing the Party wanted people to think, but on this he happened to be right):

“This Resolution demanded a complete transformation in the direction of revolutionary mass work in the trade unions; a fight against 'Left' sectarianism, which interpreted independent leadership as the abandonment of all work in the reformist trade unions; at the same time it demanded a struggle against trade union legalism, for persistent recruiting to the party, for improving the con- tent and increasing the sales of the Daily Worker, and, finally insisted on the need for tirelessly explaining to the workers the revolutionary way out of the crisis.” (The British Communist Party, A Short History, 1937, p. 150).

The reference to a “way out” of the crisis reflected another chance in the line. Up till 1932 the CPGB held that capitalism was collapsing. Palme Dutt, as the Party theorist, was the main spokesman for this viewpoint.

In Capitalism or Socialism in Britain? (March 1931), he declared:

“Capitalism or Socialism in Britain - capitalist collapse or Workers' Revolution - this is no longer a debating issue of the future, it is a life and death issue, a fight for life that draws close”

and, in The Workers' Answer to the Crisis (August 1931):

“The final issue is: Workers’ Revolution or final collapse and mass starvation.”

So Dutt, and the Communist Party, were committed in these pamphlets to the view that capitalism was collapsing and that, without a socialist revolution, the workers would starve. In effect the reason the communists were giving the workers for rising up was to avoid mass starvation. It wasn't a very encouraging message but it did provide a sort of justification for the desperate wrecking tactics the Communists had been engaging in: the situation was urgent; the Labour and trade union bureaucrats were blocking the way; to avoid mass starvation they must be smashed.

After January 1932 this was not the attitude of mind the Communists wanted the workers to have. They wanted them to fight for reforms so that the Communists by leading them in such struggles could regain some of their lost influence. They had thus to pander to reformist illusions. This was done in two ways: the harsh doctrine of "Revolt or Starve" was abandoned and the "united front" tactic was revived to a small extent.

"Revolt or Starve" was a doctrine that might have stirred the Communists to do desperate things they wouldn't normally do, but it was also by implication a declaration that it was futile to struggle for reforms. As the Communists now wanted to lead such struggles with some chance of winning a following this doctrine had to go. It was done in an ingenious way. The Communists now said that Socialism or Starvation were not the only two alternatives but that there was a "capitalist way out of the crisis" involving attacks from various sides on the workers' standard of living. This served a dual purpose for the Communists could now claim that the "revolutionary way out" of the crisis could be found in struggling against the capitalist way out. They had done it again: Reform could be justified in terms of Revolution without offending too much the illusions of pro-Labour workers.

Dutt recanted at the earliest possible moment. In the February 1932 issue of Labour Monthly he wrote:

“Until the proletarian revolution overthrows capitalism, it is inevitable that capitalism, whatever the extremity of its chaos and breakdown, will drag on, will of necessity find its own 'way out', from form to form from stage to stage, with increasing misery and renewed contradictions-until the proletariat acts.”

Earlier in the same article Dutt had written that until there was the necessary "action, organisation and victory of the working class . . . capitalism will still drag on from crisis to crisis." This in fact was the classic Marxist position - that capitalism would go on from crisis to crisis until the workers consciously organised to end it. A few months later in April, as we saw, Pollitt was brazenly denouncing the ILP for being defeatist in preaching the collapse of capitalism, though, it is true, the ILP went further than the CPGB ever did. Maxton once gave capitalism only six weeks!

The second concession was the revival of "united front" tactics, "but only from below". This proviso nullified the effect since it ruled out united action between Communist and Labour and Social Democrat organisations. Which was what the united front was supposed to be. So it would be inaccurate to say that after 1931 the Communists were again wooing the Social Democrats. Far from it, they were still "social fascists" pre- paring the way for fascism proper. The new formula did, however, represent a significant departure from the previous line. In calling for Labour and Communist workers to undertake joint activity it was a concession to the pro-Labour sentiments of the workers. It was a slight move from the previous rigid anti-Labour position. And was recognised as such by some members. For as Pollitt told the 12th Plenum in September 1932:

“the tactic of the united front with the workers who be- longed to the Labour Party was looked on, by a large portion of the Party members, as a step back from the tactic of 'class against class'.”

Adam Buick

Next month: (The concluding article): The Communist Party continues to move in the direction of full support for a Labour Government.

Reform Becomes Revolution (1972)

From the March 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The third in our series on the early history and ideas of the British Communist Party.

European Social Democracy never satisfactorily settled the problem of Reform and Revolution, of whether or not a party aiming at Socialism ought also to campaign for reform of capitalism. They tried to combine the two, having a maximum programme of Socialism and a minimum programme of reforms. This minimum programme was called variously "immediate demands", "partial demands" and "reforms". The question the Social Democrats did not face was: did campaigning for reforms hinder the struggle for Socialism? All the evidence seemed to show that it did; that the support for the Social Democratic parties was build up for reforms, not Socialism, so that these parties in effect became the prisoners of their non- socialist supporters and to retain that support were forced to compromise their socialist objective. Social- ism became merely a pious "ultimate" aim which meant, to all intents and purposes, no aim at all. Some observant members of the German Social Democratic Party around the turn of the century saw this and suggested that the party recognise that it was only out for reforms and so should drop its paper commitment to social revolution. This the party refused to do but in August 1914 the weakness of the basis on which it had built its support was exposed to all. It was not a Socialist party but a patriotic democratic reform party.

Once they had got over the initial enthusiasm of a Bolshevik government in Russia, the Communists were going to be faced with the same problem, but their theory left them even worse equipped to deal with it. The Social Democrats at least were committed to majority understanding as a pre-condition of Socialism. The Bolsheviks were not, holding that a skilful leadership using the right slogans could get the workers to rise against capitalist rule. They saw the Reform or Revolution issue as Parliament or Armed Insurrection. But in logic this was not so. Parliament could be used for the one revolutionary purpose of ending capitalism, while mass action and violence could be used to get reforms. An outside observer would not have seen much difference between the "slogans" of the Bolsheviks and the "minimum demands" of the Social Democrats, except perhaps that the Bolsheviks were demanding a lot more. There was a reason for this. The Social Democrats put forward their demands as something practical to be achieved to improve the immediate position of the workers. The Bolsheviks were more concerned with the psychological effect of their slogans. They knowingly put forward extravagant demands in order to teach the workers how little capitalism could offer. They were thus in a basically dishonest position: they told the workers lies in order to get them to struggle for reforms and so learn from their failures that only Socialism was the solution.

The Communists, no matter whether they considered the period revolutionary or not, always demanded reforms. In a revolutionary period the reforms were more extravagant still, but this was because they were "transitional", i.e., were supposed to lead on directly to the workers' overthrow of capitalism. The 1929 Programme of the Communist International explains:

“When a revolutionary situation is developing, the Party advances certain transitional slogans and partial demands corresponding to the concrete situation; but these demands and slogans must be bent to the revolutionary aim of capturing power and of overthrowing bourgeois capitalist society. The Party must neither stand aloof from the daily needs of the working class nor confine its activities exclusively to them. The task of the Party is to utilise these minor everyday needs as a starting point from which to lead the working class to the revolutionary struggle for power.”

This is quite frank and clear. It might have been thought that in a revolutionary period the Communists would only demand the maximum, i.e., power for Socialism. But this view, which was argued by a group of Italian Communists who had just been excluded, was specifically repudiated:

“Repudiation of partial demands and transitional slogans 'on principle', however, is incompatible with the tactical principles of Communism, for in effect, such repudiation condemns the Party to inaction and isolates it from the masses.”

This is unfair in that Bordiga and his supporters were not advocating inaction but a different type of action. This may well have led to a drop in support for the Communists but that would "merely show that the workers still had reformist illusions. The Comintern's line amounted to opportunism: if we do not demand reforms we shall lose and not gain the support of the workers.

Thus the Comintern required a cynical attitude of mind of its supporters. While knowing that a reform could not be achieved under capitalism, they had to pretend that it could in order to get workers to fight for it. In fact most Communists were not as cynical as this so that it was a difficult tactic to apply. Either they themselves really believed the reform could be achieved or they did not really try to pretend that it could. No wonder "right opportunism" and "left sectarianism" were frequent Comintern criticisms of its affiliates.

The British Party until 1929 provides a good example of the first deviation. We have seen how many even of the leaders had accepted that the role of the Communist Party was to be a ginger group within the Labour 'Party, trying to change it into a revolutionary, socialist organisation. When they called for a Labour government, they really meant it and tended to share the illusions of other Labour supporters. This was why they found the 1928 left turn so difficult to accept. Right opportunism was more of a problem than left sectarianism in the British Party because the bulk of its members had come originally from the pro-reform wing of the English Social Democracy (the BSP). Those who opposed Socialists advocating reforms (the SPGB) never joined the Communist Party.

In America it was the other way round: the Party there did not always put its heart into the struggle for partial demands. Listen to Gusev's complaints at the 12th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) in September 1932:

“Comrade Bedacht states that in a number of cases he found, that when our comrades spoke in the election campaign, they apologised for the fact that the Party put forward partial demands. They stated, that, of course, they knew that the solution of all problems is revolution, but that the workers do not know this, and therefore we put forward partial demands, although they have absolutely no meaning (laughter). At one meeting where Comrade Bedacht spoke on the question of social insurance, the workers in the hall told him that other Party speakers had informed them that our campaign for social insurance was not serious, that we did not expect to get anything out of it, and we were not worrying much about it, because any concessions would objectively patch up the capitalist system, the workers would be satisfied, and would not want a revolution.”

Of these two deviations that to the left was the more dangerous from the Bolshevik standpoint of trying to lead the masses. It meant less masses to lead or, as they put it, "isolation from the masses". The Comintern was not unaware of the dangers of right opportunism: particularly that a party might get so engrossed in reform struggles that it might slip out of Comintern control. But since mass influence was their aim this was obviously the direction they would move in, as they did when the tactic of "class against class" was gradually abandoned. Without mass influence parties were less effective as instruments of Russian foreign policy.

So when the Comintern launched the tactic of "independent leadership" this did not mean independent leadership in a direct struggle for Socialism, but independent leadership of the reform struggles that were supposed to lead on to the struggle for Socialism. Their theory of transitional demands involved tricking workers into believing that reforms could be achieved. To do this the Communists had not only to pretend that reforms could be got but also to denounce these who said they could not, those who in fact told the workers what the Communists agreed was the truth. In Britain the ILP served as the whipping boy. The ILP was itself a reformist party and certainly did not repudiate immediate demands but it did include a number of confused, but sincere, people who saw no harm in saying that capitalism could not be reformed and that only Socialism was the answer.

The ILP, or rather some of its leading members, put forward three particular arguments which upset the Communists -the automatic collapse of capitalism, that trade union action could not stop things getting worse and the call for "Socialism in Our Time". Listen to the way the Communists answered these points.

Pollitt is debating Fenner Brockway in April 1932:

“In the ILP literature today it is possible to find references to the automatic collapse of capitalism. No automatic collapse of capitalism is possible. There will never be a breakdown of capitalism in the sense that every- thing will come right for the workers simply to take the reins of power without mass struggle. Capitalism will find a way out of the crisis unless the workers can fight back and know how to fight back. ..Any talk about the automatic collapse of capitalism, any talk about capitalism having no way out of the crisis, leads to fatalism and disorganising the workers' fight.”

Pollitt must have hoped that his audience did not remember that this is precisely how the Communists themselves had talked only a few months previously.

In the same debate Pollitt had this to say about a passage in an ILP paper that the striking Lancashire cotton workers should realise "the price of the continuance of capitalism is worsening conditions for the working class. We must go all out for Socialism:

“Such a lead takes the heart out of the textile struggle. For the fight to defend existing conditions is the fight for Socialism. Because it is only in that fight that the workers learn solidarity, increase their political consciousness and discipline and develop a powerful weapon that can hold back the capitalist offensive. ..The ILP tells the textile workers of Lancashire that they will support them through thick and thin, but that the situation is of such a character that it is useless to do anything because Socialism alone is the alternative.”

Actually, the ILP did not say that the trade union struggle was "useless", but note how Pollitt is forced to repudiate the idea that "Socialism alone is the alternative".

R. P. Andrews had to do the same in a 1932 introduction to a reprint of The Communist International Answers the ILP (1920) when he asked:

“In the fight for a revolutionary way out of the crisis, why does the ILP leap straight into "socialism in our time" and hide from the workers the necessity of a grim and bitter struggle against the capitalist state?”

These anti-ILP arguments all have the same content. They accuse the ILP, by its talk of "capitalism cannot be reformed" and "socialism is the only way out", of discouraging the struggle for reforms and the struggle on the economic front, thus undermining the discontent the Communists were trying to exploit. Up till 1932 they maintained that this was a deliberate manoeuvre on the part of the ILP to sabotage the workers' struggle. For the Comintern had decreed that not only should the "main blows" be aimed against the Social Democrats but that of these the "lefts" were the most dangerous. As Pollitt told Brockway "the chief support of world capitalism today is that of Social Democracy, and the most dangerous part of that is the ILP because of its left wing phrases". Nevertheless, the Communist criticisms of, for instance, the ILP advice to the Lancashire cotton workers did have a logic in terms of Bolshevik theory. Those who told the truth by pointing out the limitations of trade union action were a nuisance.

L. J. Macfarlane, in his study of the British Communist Party up to 1929, comments on this aspect of Communist theory and practice:

“The workers had to learn through their own experiences that capitalism could not provide them with a tolerable standard of living. Communists needed to campaign around the day-to-day issues and demands of the workers and, through their leadership and example, gain the workers' confidence. The Communist Party refused to see any contradiction in urging the workers to press for concessions which could not, according to their analysis, ever be granted. This was a parallel contradiction to that involved in calling on them to vote for a Labour government which would betray them. In practice, of course, it was impossible to call on workers to come out on strike in order to learn through defeat the folly of purely industrial action. The Communist Party, therefore, formulated demands based on the expectations of those involved and insisted that those demands could be realized if only they campaigned hard enough for them.

Failure to achieve the aims set in any particular industrial dispute was usually ascribed to the treachery of the official union leaders, the ruthless cunning of the employers or the intervention of the capitalist government, rather than to the underlying economic condition of the industry concerned. The result was that the leading Communists working in the trade unions were supported primarily as militant trade unionists instead of as Communists.” (The Communist Party. Its Origins and Development until 1929, 1966, emphasis added).

In other words, the Communists were supported because they told lies, because they pandered to the illusions of their followers. Macfarlane also hits the nail on the head when he says that even after the expected failure to get a reform or win a strike, the Communists still cannot tell the truth but, in order to retain their support, must think up some other excuse like "betrayal". The Communists thus played a confusing role but this was a reflection of their own confusion.

Their 1929 programme Class Against Class is a prime example of this. After declaring that "there is no way of escape for the working class of this country from the degradation and oppression now imposed upon it other than by the fundamental revolutionary measures which only a Revolutionary Workers Government can put into life" they go on to outline "the programme of the Revolutionary Workers' Government" (4 pages) and then "our immediate programme of action" (12 pages). But, apart from the nationalisation without compensation of industry, land and the banks by the Revolutionary Workers' Government, the two programmes are almost word for word the same -repudiation of the national debt, rent limited to 10 per cent of wages, free medical service, non-contributory health insurance giving equivalent of wages when sick, 7-hour day and 40-hour week, raising the school leaving age to 16, independence for the Empire, publication of secret treaties, etc., etc. One difference is that the Revolutionary Workers' Government will introduce the 6-hour day for miners, while the capitalist government is only expected to go down to 7 hours, but to provide pension at 55, a promise not made for after the revolution !

But if these are “fundamental revolutionary measures which only a Revolutionary Government can put into life" is it not futile to campaign for some capitalist government to implement them? Is it not absurd to list a number of measures which you say can only be carried out after the overthrow of capitalist rule and then to campaign for their implementation by a capitalist government before it is overthrown? There is an explanation of this, that these immediate demands were really “transitional" designed only to raise revolutionary consciousness. This, in essence, is what the Communists try to say:

“Preparation for the coming of the Revolutionary Workers' Government is the present work of the Communist Party. It enters this General Election with the object of strengthening the workers to that ultimate end. It puts before the workers the following proposals for an immediate militant working-class policy -not an alternative to the programme which has just been outlined, but a statement of things which the working class demands at once.

Labour reformists claim that the Communist Party is concentrating all attention on distant revolution, whilst they, as practical people, are concentrating on getting something now. This, of course, is nonsense. The struggle for reforms in the present period leads to revolution. The following programme of immediate demands is. therefore, not an alternative to the programme of the Revolutionary Workers' Government, but the application of its principles to the immediate situation as preparatory measures expressing the needs of the workers, the struggle for which weakens the forces of the capitalist class and strengthens the power of the working class, and prepares it for its greater task of conquering power.”

But this will not do. If their demands are transitional then their Labour critics are right: the Communists are not concerned with getting something now (since transitional demands are not supposed to be able to put into practice under capitalism). On the other hand, if these are not transitional demands then they are an alternative to the “ultimate end". The basic confusion arises because the Communists probably felt that some of these reforms could be achieved under capitalism (as indeed some could and have been) but had to justify campaigning for them in revolutionary terms. They were ordinary reforms but had to be labelled “transitional" because there was supposed to be a revolutionary period. Note the old Social Democratic dichotomy between "ultimate end" and "immediate demands".

Speaking “r-r-revolutionary" but acting as a reform party is about all the Comintern's left turn amounted to. The Communists were guilty of the charge they levelled at the ILP (and other “left Social Democrats"): they were revolutionary phrase-mongers side-tracking the direct struggle for Socialism into reform struggles.

Their phrase-mongering drew not only on Socialist but also on old Radical sources. When in 1931 the National government abandoned free trade and went over to protection, the Communists raised the slogan of "No Taxes on the People's Food", a slogan which nearly a hundred years previously Cobden and Bright had used to trick workers into backing the capitalists' demand for Repeal of the Corn Laws so as to pay lower wages and which the demagogue Lloyd George had used to win support for the Liberals against Tory plans for tariff reform twenty-five years before. The Communists, too, were playing the demagogue and it is a measure of their lack of revolutionary intent that they revived this hoary old anti-working class slogan in a bid to gain a mass following.

Brian Pearce has pointed out how when in 1926 the CPGB brought out its own edition of Trotsky's Where is Britain Going? they omitted the word “revolutionary" :

“It omitted the preface specially written by Trotsky for the American edition in May 1925, which included these words: 'The inference to which I am led by my study is that Britain is heading rapidly towards an era of great revolutionary upheavals'; and, though giving the bulk of the introduction written in May 1926 for the second German edition, it omitted the word 'revolutionary' from the phrase 'the revolutionary prediction for the immediate future of British Imperialism made in this book' and also an entire paragraph which included these words: 'The most important task for the truly revolutionary participants in the General Strike will be to fight relentlessly against every sign or act of treachery, and ruthlessly to expose reformist illusions'.” (Early History of the Communist Party of Great Britain. p.59).

This was in line with the Comintern's then assessment of the situation as non-revolutionary. After 1928, on the other hand, the word "revolutionary" was back in favour. Instead of an ordinary Labour government there was to be a revolutionary workers' government. The Communists began to refer to themselves as the revolutionary Communist Party. Ordinary reform and trade union activity became “revolutionary mass work". There was a revolutionary trade union opposition to the bureaucrats.

So, when is there a revolutionary situation? Answer: When we say there is. And what do you do in such a situation? Answer: we call our reform and trade union activity revolutionary.

This is no exaggeration for the Communists always held that "the struggle for reforms in the present period leads to revolution", however they assessed the period. They argued this before 1928 and they argued it ten years later, when they wanted a Popular Front government. The fact is that they were essentially reformers justifying their reform work in terms of Bolshevik metaphysics. If, in accordance with the Marxist method, we judge the Communists by what they do rather than by what they say, they stand exposed as hypocritical reformists mouthing revolutionary phrases.

Adam Buick

Next month: the Communist Party retreats from “sectarianism”.