Twenty Years On ! (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in times of revolutionary change. The Second World War predicted by Socialists is now three years old. The tank, the bomber and the long-range submarine are re-drafting the political map of the world. Colossal forces, employing war engines that would have amazed Jules Verne himself, are deciding which group are to control the world’s wealth.

World-famous organisations have been swept into limbo. Dictators have appeared as heaven-sent “leaders” of war-like nations. Politicians, statesmen of long standing, have performed miracles of agility. One-time conscientious objectors become Ministers of Home Security. Strike leaders, Ministers of Labour; leaders of “Socialist Leagues,” who desired to utilise war time to “overthrow capitalism,” Deputy Prime Ministers.

Overnight, when Russia was drawn in, “the enigma, wrapped in mystery” became a “brave and noble ally.” Now Communism (so-called) so far from making a nation “abject and miserable in peace and beaten and humiliated in war,” is the explanation of the Red Army’s courage.

Oh ! unhappy politicians ! who sent a hundred thousand uniforms and greatcoats as well as arms, ammunition and guns, tanks and aeroplanes to Finland for use against Russia in 1940. Oh! unfortunate Sir Walter ! who proved how much superior Finnish democracy is to Russian dictatorship in his “My Finnish Diary.” With what alacrity they have run the Red Flag of Russia up on public buildings (except the Bank of England).

The Socialist, who keeps a cool head and sticks to plain facts, is hotly denounced by Communists. Large numbers of workers, knowing little about the subject, feel the effects of twenty years’ propaganda of “Socialism” in Russia. Once again the Communist Party is able to delude a fair number of temporary dupes, on the grounds that second fronts may speedily terminate the war, and usher in some social improvements. For this is now, they say, a war between Socialist Workers’ Russia and Capitalist Fascist Germany.

How utterly different this is from every anticipation of all Communists of the past, from Lenin downwards, is quite unknown to these latter-day converts.

Still further proof of the complete correctness of the Socialist Party’s stand on the Russian upheaval, its definition of the Russian system, and the present impossibility of Socialism there, is supplied by one of the best-known ex-Communist leaders, Mr. J. T. Murphy, in his autobiographical account of some twenty years’ activity, fifteen of which were spent as a Communist International official.—(“New Horizons.”)

Amid the reams of paper, gallons of ink, and tons of lead used in printing thousands of books on Russia, the short, plain, straight statements appearing in the Socialist Standard in 1918, 1919, and especially in 1920, stand out like the proverbial searchlight, casting a brilliant beam through a cloud of murky confusion.

More astounding still, twenty-two years later, when each and every party has performed a somersault, the Socialist Party statement does not require alteration.

The time will surely come when the obscure, self-taught, proletarian contributor to the Socialist Standard, “J.F.”, [Jack Fitzgerald] will receive due recognition for the merit of his remarkable analysis of the Russian revolutionary drama and the realisation of his clear firm anticipations.

Writing in the Socialist Standard for 1920 on the Russian Dictatorship, he declared : —

“This controversy (between Kautsky and Lenin), along with the events that have taken place since it occurred, adds considerable evidence of the correctness of the deduction we drew from the situation in 1918.

In the midst of the special conditions and chaos caused by the war, when the old exploiting regime had broken down and the new exploiting class were too weak to take hold of power, a small but resolute minority seized the political machinery and took control of affairs. The mass of the workers in Russia are not Socialists, neither do they understand the principles of Socialism, nor desire to see Socialism established. . . .

. . . . rule by a minority—even a Marxist minority—is not Socialism. Not until the instruments and methods of production have reached the stage of large machinery and mass organisation is it possible for social production to develop. . . When the workers. . . reach. . . an understanding of their slave position, and decide to supplement social production by social ownership, through the seizure of political power, then, and not till then, will Socialism be established.

The Bolsheviks may try to save as much of their system as possible, but the events will prove the correctness of Marx’s views on the failure of attempts to jump the stages in social evolution. 

Their failure, however, will not be all disaster. They will have shown the workers of the world that the capitalist class is a useless and parasitic class in modern society.— (“Socialist Standard,” July, 1920.)

Did the Bolsheviks base their hopes on a Western rising. Let J. T. Murphy, delegate to the 1920 Congress of the Communist International, testify, writing in 1941 :

“It is as certain as anything can be that the delegates who arrived in Moscow in 1920 were too emotionally overwhelmed to estimate calmly . . . The World Revolution had begun and it would quickly sweep Europe.

Zinoviev concluded his speech in Moscow with these words: ‘I happened to say (a year ago) somewhat enthusiastically that after one year we shall forget there had been a struggle for a Soviet Government. We were over-enthusiastic, indeed it is likely that we shall require two or even three years before the whole of Europe becomes Soviet.'”

Murphy, after explaining the circumstances of the day, goes on : 

“The Russian revolution was victorious but the European revolution was in retreat. These things did not stand out clearly before us. We thought of ourselves as the centre of the revolution which would spread wave on wave. We were playing leap-frog with history and did not know it.”

One may ask whether any party in history has been so absolutely right, when so many others have been completely wrong.

Even to-day, Mr. Murphy, after admitting twenty years of mistakes, still persists in them, and devotes his time to footling antics with “Popular Fronts” and “People’s Fronts,” now so rapidly discredited.

He recounts how, at the Conference of the short-lived “Socialist League” before the war, “Sir Stafford Cripps ‘swept the Conference’ and secured a unanimous vote.”

“He argued that we would have nothing to do with a war led by a capitalist government, and stated that the issue before us was ‘ War or Socialism.’ Our job was first and foremost to get rid of the capitalist government.”

To-day that same Cripps is Deputy Prime Minister of the capitalist government.

The most politically backward elements of the working-class are now pro-Russian. This experience will justify the prophesy of the Socialist Standard in 1920.

“When the workers awaken to an understanding of their class position . . . and begin to fight the class-war consciously in numbers that count, the rule of the Russian Bolsheviks will be a splendid lesson . . . on the ability of the working-class to manage its own affairs. It will have done its share in shortening and lessening the birth-pangs of Socialism.”

Horatio.

Moscow Turns a New Somersault and Mr. Pollitt Holds the Baby (1939)

From the November 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is many years since a prominent English Communist fell a victim to the acrobatic changes in Communist Party policy. Some years ago J. T. Murphy walked the plank and fell. He resigned, but his resignation was refused on the grounds that working-class parties do not accept resignations. His deviation was duly and gravely considered by the Executive Committee of the Communist Party and he was expelled.

And now Mr. Pollitt has fallen from grace. True he has not been expelled, nor has he resigned. In this connection the Daily Worker (October 12th, 1936) puts the matter very nicely: “There is no truth in the suggestion that Harry Pollitt has resigned from the Communist Party. In view of the differences of opinion which were expressed during the discussion (on the question of continuing the war), the Central Committee decided that Harry Pollitt should not continue as General Secretary, but should undertake other duties for the Party.” Despite a weak attempt to obscure the facts, Mr. Pollitt is obviously a casualty of the polite English equivalent of the Russian purge. Mr. Pollitt’s name was associated more publicly with the recent peace-front and anti-Nazi line than any other Communist. Without warning Moscow decided on a change of policy. To put some sort of face on the change, Mr. Pollitt has been liquidated. A short while ago the first hint of a change in Russian foreign policy came when Litvinoff was removed from his position of Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Russian Government. The uninitiated may be puzzled by the procedure. It is, nevertheless, a way they have where the dictatorship ideology prevails. Unlike countries where democratic institutions exist, the machinery of dictatorial government provides few means of escape from situations like this.

For many years Mr. Pollitt has been the most outstanding and popular personality in the Communist Party, loyal to every change in policy. He was the loudspeaker which faithfully relayed Moscow. No matter how much the line changed Mr. Pollitt could always put over those changes with sufficient adroitness to make black appear white, and white appear black. Though, of course, constant changes in policy could not fail to promote skill in this direction. And what changes there were! One week the “line” was, support the Labour Party, the next, oppose it. One day the “line” was to treat the Labour Party like well-meaning, but mistaken, brothers in a common cause, and the next to refer to the erstwhile brethren as “traitors,” “Social-Fascists,” “renegades,” “capitalist hacks,” etc., and etc. Had the Vicar of Bray known our modern professional Communists he surely would have acquired rapid promotion to the Archbishopric of Canterbury! And yet even the Communist Party has met a situation which now taxes its ingenuity in finding plausible explanations to satisfy its followers. And this time it is no ordinary somersault. Previous changes in policy have been relatively harmless. have had no worse effect than to provide entertainment for the sophisticated. But the present is the somersault of somersaults. It is supreme in its cynicism, trickery and double-dealing. Communist Party supporters have been as severely shaken as the self-righteous equanimity of the official elements.

The policy of the Communist Party in this country and elsewhere has always been subject to the dictates of Moscow. Of recent years it has been along lines which the present ruling clique in Russia considered to be in conformity with Russia’s trading interests. The desertion by Russia of the traditional policy of isolation and the joining of the League of Nations placed the Communist Party in the position of having to turn its back on about fifteen years of anti-capitalist and anti-League propaganda. It was embarrassing, but not beyond their resourcefulness. The results have now come home to roost. Russia’s need and desire for position and prestige in the international trading and political world were the mainsprings that pressed her on. The necessities of the game soon found her supporting one Power or group of Powers as against another Power or group. And the Communist Party soon found that it not only had to support the League of Nations, but what it really stood for: the political dominance in Europe of the Powers that dominated the League, Great Britain and France. And so the Communist Party, which never practises half-measures, were soon the loudest in demanding the logical application of League principles. Hence its demand for military sanctions against Italy and the closing of the Suez Canal during the Abyssinian War. When the influence of the League waned they came out openly in support of an alliance between the “peace-loving” Powers against the “aggressors.” In domestic politics this resulted in the demand for the popular front, which became a plank in Communist Party programmes, even as far afield as the United States. The Popular Front was to include “progressives” of all parties, that is, all those who agreed with the Communist Party and their methods of “standing up to the aggressors.” They roundly abused Chamberlain for even negotiating with the untouchable Hitler. The effect on Communist Party propaganda was not without its amusing side. The hammer and sickle and the slogan, “Workers of the World, Unite,” disappeared from the front page of the Daily Worker. The customary violent and flamboyant abuse vanished and the “traitors” became “statesmen.” Tories, duchesses, bishops, and Communists appeared together at public meetings in support of the new policy, and cooed at each other like old maids at a christening party.

And now it has all ended, suddenly and without warning. Even the wily political variety artists at Communist headquarters have been caught napping. The Russian Government changed its mind and deserted the Allied group of capitalist Powers in favour of Germany. The Nazi and Soviet gentlemen have arranged a truce in the war of loathing and abuse which they have hurled at each other for years, and ingenuous Communists have now had the pleasure of gazing in rapture at the Press pictures of Stalin and Ribbentrop smiling sweetly into each other’s eyes. Whereas the old policy expressed itself in demands for self-determination for small nations, e.g., Czecho-Slovakia, Spain, Austria, and so on, the new one has to approve the agreement to carve up Poland and to square the “self-determination” propaganda with Russia’s efforts to acquire dominance over small nations like Latvia, Estonia and Finland, an effort which she pursued with the familiar Nazi technique of placing an army on the borders of those countries. Military force, the last word in capitalist argument, will decide the issue when Russia seeks to “protect” little nations, not conferences which will discuss democratically the “rights” of “self-determination.”

But does the Communist Party eat its words? Does it come before the workers in humble repentance for the criminal hoax which it has perpetrated upon them in the name of Marx and revolutionary traditions? Do they—do they hell! In the words of many a humble stumper of earlier and more honest days, when less of the bourgeois accent was heard from the Communist platform—not bloody likely! The Communist Party has subtler methods. Witness a statement issued by the Central Committee which appeared in the Daily Worker (October 12th). It says: —

 

The manifesto of October 7th corrects the declaration issued on September 2nd. The present war is not a just war, but an unjust and imperialist war. . . .

A few strokes of the pen and the tearing, raging, democratic (pro-British, pro-French), anti-Nazi (German) propaganda has been wiped out. Only the Catholic Church could equal this easy wiping away of past sins. Note that the “Manifesto of October 7th corrects the declaration of September 2nd.” A three years orgy of high-pressure propaganda in all branches of Communist activity is a little error, made on September 2nd, and corrected on October 7th. Could chicanery go further? Just a little. Read on: “In view of the differences of opinion . . . the Central Committee decided that Harry should not continue as General Secretary.”

Get the implication? It was Harry Pollitt’s error which stood to be corrected. It was Pollitt who wrote the pamphlet, “How to Win the War,” which has proved awkward for Moscow and the Communists. In it Pollitt wrote: —

  “The Communist Party supports the war, believing it to be a just war, which should be supported by the whole working class and all friends of democracy. . . . To stand aside from this conflict, to contribute only revolutionary-sounding phrases while the Fascist beasts ride roughshod over Europe, would be a betrayal of everything our forbears have fought to achieve in the course of long years of struggle with capitalism.

  The British workers are in this war to defeat Hitler, for a German victory would mean that Fascism would be imposed on the defeated countries. If there is one thing that is certain, it is this, that the British working class detests Fascism, as it does those who in Britain have helped to strengthen it, and is determined to do everything in its power to bring about the defeat of Fascism and that of its supporters in Britain. Therefore it will do everything it can to bring the war to a speedy conclusion, but only by the defeat and destruction of Hitler and the Nazi rule from which the German people have been suffering for six years.”

But Pollitt wrote what every Communist journalist has been writing and working up to for years, what every paid and unpaid speaker has been expounding. He wrote what was strictly in accordance with the policy dictated by the Russian Government and in line with their interests. Now he has slipped—in short, he has been left holding the baby. Could anything more expose the whole make-believe of leadership and dictatorship?

But the Communist Party now says that the war is an imperialist war, and cries for peace. Shall we, then, be soft in our judgment and give praise? Pause, friend, and think. The Communist Party has had no change of heart; it has merely obeyed the College of Cardinals at Moscow. In doing so it has been true to its traditions and its paymasters. And when Moscow calls again it will obey. And if later it appears to be in line with Russia’s interests to make a deal with the “democracies,” then the Communist Party will experience another change of heart. The “just war” which became an “unjust war” by the simple process of the Daily Worker issuing a decree on October 7th, will again become a “just war.” The suppression of objective truth, the sycophantic flattery of representatives of the capitalists will re-appear. Watch carefully the peaceful Communist Party. The honest pacifist commands our respect. The purely professional, time-serving politician, our contempt.

But—it is an ill wind that blows no good. The case that we have stuck to for twenty years has again been justified by events. At the time of the Russian upheaval, and since, we have consistently maintained that Russia had to develop along capitalist lines. It has done so, and the history of the last twenty years, culminating in the present position, proves our case right up to the hilt. After futile attempts at isolation, Russia was compelled by her own economic development to enter the international competitive markets and into commercial and political relations with the rest of the capitalist world. Its foreign policy reflected the needs of its position in the international market. Ten years ago W. N. Ewer brought upon his head the opprobrium of some of the Labour and Communist Press because of an article he wrote in the Communist Labour Monthly, in which he made out the case that Russia’s foreign policy was a continuation of the foreign policy of the Czarist Government. Mr. Palme Dutt later had to publish a repudiation of the article in response to the official demand of the Communist Party. Russia’s subsequent development has shown a still further acceleration of the process to which Ewer drew attention. By whatever name the Communists like to call Russian efforts to achieve political and commercial dominance in China, and of similar efforts in S.E. Europe, they are, for those who understand, different only in degree from what has always been condemned by the Communists as imperialism. To-day the Soviet Government and its agents might give another name, but they cannot alter its essentially capitalist character. Russia’s foreign policy expresses needs which are governed by her position in the competitive cockpit of international markets, her need for markets and trade routes, and the acquisition of territories for dominance, or influence. Where the economic urge drives, pretty names will not alter the fact that this is the very thing that the Communists have been pretending to denounce for about twenty years.

The workers must face the fact that the Communist movement throughout the world is tied to the Russian Government; it cannot, dare not, consider the merits of any policy in the light of what ‘is in line with working-class interests. The Communist movement owes its first loyalty to Moscow. What is best in working-class interests is secondary, even if it is ever considered at all.

This is the lesson of events which Communists throughout the world must accept or, in default, mesmerise themselves into mental paralysis.

Harry Waite

A Debate. (1930)

Party News from the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A debate took place on Friday, March 28th, at the A.E.U. Institute, Sheffield, between J. T. Murphy, representing the Communist Party of Great Britain, and our representative, E. Boden, of the Sheffield Branch.

Our Case.
The subject of the debate was: "Which Party should the workers support—the S.P.G.B., or the C.P.G.B.?”

Comrade Boden, who opened the debate, outlined the subject position of the working class in capitalist society, and showed that this subject condition could only be abolished by converting the means of living from being the private property of the capitalist class into the common property of society. This conversion could be carried out only after the capture of the political machinery by the workers, organised in the Socialist Party. Comrade Boden laid stress on the fact that the state control of capital (as in Russia) and the administration of capitalism by so-called "Labour” representatives (as in Great Britain) are not Socialism.


The Case Of The Communist Party.
In his reply, Mr. Murphy described this as the "most hopeless message he had ever listened to.”

He said that our representative had outlined some very simple facts concerning the class division in society which he did not dispute, but had not told the workers what they were to do to-morrow morning. The Soviet Union was the one exception to the general statement that the capitalists owned the means of living. The S.P.G.B. maintained a counter revolutionary attitude towards the Soviet Union. (Mr. Murphy did not venture to offer any evidence for this statement but merely contented himself with making it.) Definitions of capital were of minor importance. The burning question was how to establish Socialism!

The S.P.G.B. had a wonderful philosophy. They regarded the workers as a lot of fools who were no further advanced than they were ten years ago.

The Communist Party held that Marxists must be in the struggle consciously; but the S.P.G.B. stood society on its head. They told the workers not to strike or organise in the factories, but to be quiet. The Communist Party regarded strikes and unemployed marches as part of the political struggle leading up to the smashing of the State machine. Parliament was a capitalist machine, which could not be used by the workers; but the S.P.G.B., like the I.L.P., held that the workers could get Socialism by simply voting for it.

Second Speech For The S.P.G.B. 

In his second speech, Comrade Boden pointed out that Mr. Murphy had made a series of false statements. The S.P.G.B. did not tell the workers not to strike, and to be quiet. What they did say was that strikes failed either to remove the cause of poverty or to change the general direction of capitalist development. Hence the necessity for political action. Mr. Murphy’s statements regarding Russia were not in accordance with the facts. Lenin’s “Preparing for Revolt” was quoted as evidence that the Bolshevists had no intention of dispossessing the capitalists as a class, and further quotations from the Soviet Union Year Book, 1929, were read to show that capitalist property in the form of State loans was rapidly developing in Russia. Comrade Boden pointed out that the workers there were exploited by means of the wages system as in other countries.

Communist Reply.

Mr. Murphy, in his reply stated that the attempt by revolutionary workers in Italy to capture Parliament was met by Fascism. The workers would have to crush the capitalists on the streets. The Russian Revolution had shown the way in which the workers should come to power. The S.P.G.B. said there had been no Revolution in Russia, but the workers owned the means of living there. True, they did not receive the full fruits of their labour individually, but they did so collectively through their control of the State. They talked of their “wages,” but that was only a convenient expression for the benefit of people with only average intelligence. Really, another word should be used to describe the arrangement. The workers ruled in Russia, but the S.P.G.B. talked the language of counter-revolution. Mr. Murphy said that the S.P.G.B.’s case had vanished and in its place stood a diatribe against Russia. The S.P.G.B. took its stand alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury. Our speaker had accused the Communists of supporting the Labour Party, but Mr. Murphy asserted that this was only because its leaders were at the head of the Trade Union movement in the General Council during the General Strike. True, they were only there to betray it, but what were the Communists to do—become strike-breakers ?

Final Speech For The S.P.G.B.

In his concluding speech, Comrade Boden said that Mr. Murphy seemed unable to distinguish between taking part in a strike against the employers, and supporting the Labour Party (a party admitted by the Communists to be a capitalist party) during an election.

To a Socialist the difference between a strike and a demand for reforms of the capitalist system is obvious.

Mr. Murphy’s statement that in Russia the workers are the rulers is not in accordance with the facts. The assistant secretary of the Russian Communist Party, V. Molotov, in his book, “The Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” states that less than half of the Party members are workers, and they constitute a small minority of the working class of Russia. Further, the reactionary elements who were supposed to have been suppressed 10 years ago are active inside the Russian Communist Party, as is shown by the repeated "purgings.” This fact alone disposed of the claims made on behalf of the dictatorship in Russia.

Finally, the three principal pillars of the State which the Bolsheviks were alleged to have smashed (i.e., the political police, the bureaucracy and the standing army) remain intact according to Molotov. They would do so while capitalism lasted in Russia.

Mr. Murphy Winds Up The Debate.

In winding up the debate, Mr. Murphy asserted that the army in Russia is “ours.” It was only natural that reactionary elements should force their way into the ruling party in any country. It had happened in Ireland, but in Russia these elements were being discovered and expelled.

What Shall We Do With Our Votes? (1928)

Editorial from the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the approach of a General Election the “Left Wing” Labour groups are asking themselves how they ought to vote. All the rebels and near-rebels and would-be rebels are wondering whether they ought to carry their opposition to the Labour Party to the extent of telling their supporters to vote for Communist candidates or the candidates put up by branches expelled from the official Labour Party. They are, of course, in a difficult position. Having dubbed the Labour Party programme a “Liberal” programme, they must now choose either to support that programme and the candidates who fight on it, or, in effect, put themselves outside the Labour Party; for the Labour Party Executive is taking vigorous action wherever the dissident elements infringe the Party constitution and rules. Probably many of the Left-Wingers would like to take a definite stand, but they are deterred by the consequences. Whatever they may say about the discontent of the Labour Party membership with its leaders, a practical test soon convinces them that it is MacDonald not Maxton, J. H. Thomas not Arthur Cook, who have the support of the mass of the Trade Union members. A recent and illuminating test was the Borough Council elections.

In England and Wales the Communist candidates polled in the areas contested by them 10.5 per cent. of the Labour Party vote, and in Scotland 19.5 per cent. For the whole country their poll was 17.7 per cent. of the Labour votes in these selected constituencies (Sunday Worker, November 18th, 1928). The Editor of the Sunday Worker points out, too, that the Communist vote has declined since the Communist Party recently adopted the policy of openly opposing Labour candidates. He says that “in places where Communist candidates previously contested seats, before the adoption of the party’s new electoral policy, decreased votes for the Communists are frequently recorded.”

The Sunday Worker offers what is no doubt a correct explanation. Even many voters who are dissatisfied with the Labour Party programme will not vote against its candidates because they want to “get the Tories out.” To indicate the unsoundness of this policy of voting for one capitalist party in order to prevent another capitalist party getting in, the Sunday Worker recalls the 1906 Election, when hundreds of thousands of workers who had no faith in Liberalism voted for the Liberals in order to keep the Tories out. The Liberals got in and eight years later led its dupes into the War.

Truly a fatuous policy, but who have done more to propagate it than the Communists and the multifarious “Left Wing” groups? The Communists from 1920 to 1927, and the other “ Left Wing " groups still, have persistently denounced the Labour Party and simultaneously told the workers to vote for it because, in some way never explained and now (by the Communists) emphatically denied, it was supposed to be better than the other capitalist parties. If the workers still have faith in the Labour Party’s programme of reforming capitalism, the responsibility cannot be shelved by the Communists and the Sunday Worker.

Even now, while opposing some Labour candidates, the Communist Party members are required to go on paying the political levy to the Labour Party through their Trade Unions. Could anything be more productive of confusion in the minds of the workers?

Mr, J. T. Murphy, a prominent member of the Communist Party, writes on this in the November issue of the Communist, and  points out the absurdity of asking the miners to contribute £10,000 a year to the Labour Party and then appealing to the miners again for more thousands to fight the Labour candidates. He also condemns the confusing relationship between the Communists and the Left Wing groups, which, he says, has made the Communist Party a “laughing-stock.”

  Our party members are not quite sure when they should be recruiting for the Left Wing and when for the party. It appears that we can carry the programme of the Left Wing in one pocket and that of the Communist party in the other, and, according to the audience we are addressing, use one or the other without contradiction, for . . . the Communist programme and the Left Wing are identical in all essentials. The only people who ought to be bewildered, apparently, should be the audience who are to be led into the Left Wing according to circumstances (i.e., whichever meeting they have attended—if a C.P. meeting, then into the C.P.; if a Left Wing meeting, then into the Left Wing). This may be considered by some of our comrades to be tactical, but I am sure that' our party members are unhappy about it, and cannot get results whilst such a policy exists. (Communist, November 1928.)

We see, therefore, that the Communists are still unprepared to accept and act on the recognition of the fact that the workers' economic position of subjection is the result of capitalism and will continue as long as capitalism continues, irrespective of whether the system is administered by Tories, Liberals, the Labour Party or by anyone else. Similarly, the Sunday Worker, having disposed of the fallacious argument that the workers should vote Labour to “keep the Tories out,” proceeds to throw up another smoke screen in order to hide its retreat from the position to which its argument would logically lead it. The editorial lamely concludes:—

  We shall give our votes only to the working-class candidates whose programme is the end of imperialism and the end of war.

Capitalism and the danger of capitalist war will not be brought to an end by voting for the Labour Party programme of reforms of capitalism. Labour candidates are compelled to fight on the Labour Party’s general programme, but this, of course, will not prevent every single Labour candidate from saying that he is in favour of “ending Imperialism and war.” Probably all the Liberals and most of the Tories will equally willingly subscribe to the same vague and unhelpful declaration. So that, having given good reasons why the workers should vote against the Labour, candidates, the Sunday Worker evades the issue with a piece of advice which is meaningless.

In contrast with the trifling of Communist and Left Wing groups, the Socialist Party gives a bold answer. If the workers vote for capitalism, then they will get what they vote for. Workers who want Socialism will vote only for Socialist candidates. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is unique among the political parties in this country in being prepared to put forward candidates fighting on that issue alone, Socialism or Capitalism. At present the number of workers who want Socialism is few in comparison with those who want Liberal capitalism, Tory capitalism or Labour Party capitalism. That unfortunate position can be remedied only by Socialist propaganda. It is not helped, but hindered, by voting for one in preference to another of the parties which stand for private or state capitalism. There are differences, and real differences, between the capitalist parties, but the differences do not touch the subject condition of the working class.

Editorial: Bunglers at Work. (1932)

Editorial from the March 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Collapse of the Communists

In our February issue attention was called to the change of view on the part of a leading Communist (Mr. R. P. Dutt) regarding the long-heralded collapse of capitalism.

Mr. Dutt is by no means alone in having beat a retreat from the position occupied by the Communists practically since the formation of their Party. According to the Daily Worker of January 20th, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain arrived at certain “important decisions” concerning its “revolutionary mass work.” "The Election results had shown that the isolation of the party, its main weakness, was not yet overcome.” Hence a “new line” had to be hunted for once more.

In the course of the discussion Mr. Rust remarked that— 

   the loose talk about "No way out for capitalists from the crisis” led to fatalism, and passive waiting for the "collapse" to the "Let them Starve!" theory, and actually helped the Labour Party.

Speaking at the Tivoli Theatre, Sheffield, on January 24th (when he should have been debating with a representative of the S.P.G.B. at Stockport), Mr. J. T. Murphy spent over three-quarters of an hour riddling this and kindred delusions of the Communist rank and file. “There is no reason,” he declared, “why capitalism cannot stagger on from one generation to another, from one crisis to another, unless the workers end it.” Unfortunately, he did not enlighten his hearers as to how they were to do this.

Vague talk about ”fighting back” and dark hints about “inevitable civil war” (they promised civil war in the winter of 1921) were the only things offered in the way of “a constructive policy.”

   The man who says the workers will only fight when kicked in the belly only shows that he is not prepared to carry on the work of education,

proceeded Mr. Murphy.

What terrible "theoretical stuff” is this with which to feed red-blooded "men of action”? And then the speaker let the cat out of the bag; he commented on the frequency with which the I.L.P. leaders have of late been working up the idea of an impending collapse. The I.L.P. have stolen the Communist thunder. They have been out-ranting the professional ranters. In their indecent haste to distinguish themselves from their offspring, the Labour Party (from which, however, they dare not disaffiliate), the I.L.P. have thought it good policy to try to annex the Communist Party’s following. Hence attempts to run a rival unemployed organisation.

In turn, therefore, the leaders of the Communists. find it necessary to abandon the slogans once so lustily chanted, in order to preserve their distinction from the "phrase-mongers” of the I.L.P. The propaganda of the “united front” has given way to “exposure of left manoeuvres,” because “to many workers the difference in principle between the policy of the C.P. and the policy of the reformists was not at all made clear ” (Daily Worker, January 20th).

The issue, however, is by no means a purely national one. Wiring from Moscow on November. 3rd, 1931, Mr. Walter Duranty reported an interview given by a Soviet official to the New York Times (November 4th), in the course of which the official made the remark that— 

  "capitalism was not yet at death's door and the growing rate of under-production during the past year must ultimately stimulate demand and raise prices."

Mr. Duranty proceeded to comment as follows:—

  Like all Soviet utterances, this tallied with the "Party Line” as expressed by Joseph Stalin and other leaders who believe the present depression is not the end of capitalism. Black as things look everywhere Soviet opinion holds this is no more than one grists in the long series which capitalist economists regard as indicative of capitalism's “growing pains."

How unfortunate that in their General Election manifesto, 1931, the British Communists should have committed themselves to the definite statement that “capitalism has gone bankrupt " (p. 4).

A further example of the humble and contrite heart that has become increasingly noticeable at Communist Party Headquarters is provided in the Daily Worker of January 25th. Most Socialists and a large number of non-Socialists are familiar with the Communist Party’s boasts of their leadership of the local strikes all over the country in the day-to-day struggle with capital. The Daily Worker now says:—

   The textile workers, the hosiery workers and the London lightermen are all on the streets. In no case are we in the leading role.

Further on they account for this by saying:—

   We are slow to learn from our mistakes and there is such a rich experience to learn from. (Italics ours.)
   What have been some of our chief mistakes in the strike struggles? First a very formal and frivolous attitude to questions of strike policy and organisation.
  We have brought forward demands that have been worked out in the Party rooms by a few Communists, and many times by Communists who have not the faintest contact or knowledge of the industry in which the strikes are taking place.
  We set up rank-and-file committees, which are committees composed of ourselves, destitute of representative authority, and which only succeed in degrading the conception of what a rank and file strike committee ought to be.
  Many times we lightmindedly call for strike action without the semblance of preparation having been made, so that in some districts, when workers see our comrades, they are apt to say, “Hello, what are we to strike for to-day? ” Why do we mention these weaknesses so openly? Because, unless we can kill such methods we shall never correct our work. (“Daily Worker,” 25th January.)

Alas! even the Christians have for centuries confessed themselves as miserable sinners regularly every Sunday—without apparent effect. They still go on sinning.

The above “mistakes” of the Communists have been repeatedly pointed out for years in these columns, but, as they admit, they are slow to learn.

When the workers generally acquire an understanding of their position under capitalism, they will not require to be told what to do, either upon the political or the industrial field. They will then be in a position to dispense with leaders of the Henderson, Thomas and Clynes type, with their poisonous doctrines of conciliation; but just as little will they need the crew of conceited busybodies who have failed so conspicuously to dislodge these leaders from their position.

A Winter's Tale (1931)

From the January 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well! well!! well!!! Thank goodness, Christmas is over. Everybody has spent more than they should, everyone has bought presents for everyone else, and everyone is worse off except the children and the shopkeepers. The pantomimes are in full swing, and the opening of Parliament will add to their number. J. H. Thomas is ordering a new dress suit—all British—to help the trade of the Empire, and Ramsay is engaged in converting two and a half miles of his dinner speeches into gramophone records. With machines erected at convenient intervals along our coast, it is thought they will be wonderfully efficacious in keeping the east wind off our unemployed. The Mace was found to have vanished during the Recess, but Mr. Beckett explained he had only borrowed it to stir his pudding and would replace it in time for the opening performance. The sensitive heart of Mr. Lansbury has been riven by the spectacle of the ducks on St. James’s Park lake being divorced from their natural element by a thin sheet of ice. Ever practical, ever sympathetic, he has directed that holes shall be pierced at appropriate intervals in the ice, and that the pelicans shall be fitted with (British) skates. That is all the news that our ill-informed Parliamentary Correspondent can think of for the moment. But, looking over the outstanding events of 1930, he has reminded us that there was one item of world-shattering import overlooked by the regular Press. Future historians will record their gratitude to us for rescuing from undeserved oblivion the following moving story.

Let us tell the tale from the beginning. The Communist Party has been having a thin time. Apart from the general apathy due to the discovery of the fraudulence of the Labour Party, the C.P. suffers from private bogies of its own. Among them there is what is called the “right” danger. They seem to be a bit foggy upon the precise meaning of the term, due to the Communist Pope and Cardinals not having explained the danger to the faithful membership. The result was unfortunate. As J. T. Murphy explained in the Communist Review for last June:—

     Because of a lack of understanding of the new methods of work and a desire to eradicate the “right danger,” there has been by many comrades, indeed, whole district party leaderships, a leap into “left” sectarianism, which has isolated the party more than ever from the workers. The independent leadership of the party has become in these districts the isolated leadership, dashing about with revolutionary sounding propositions, accompanied by the transformation of revolutionary terms which mean something, into revolutionary jargon, which drives the workers away from us.

This is very sad, not to say serious. In fact, Mr. Murphy says:—

  In order that the seriousness of this situation can be realised . . . it is necessary to analyse some of these experiences which have led to serious struggles between the Political Bureau and the comrades concerned, though these comrades finally admitted their mistakes.

Some instances follow of the faithful Communists fighting the “right” danger by barging into “left sectarianism.” All are pathetically amusing. We select the following for seasonable reading, and wish we could add a reliable description of the “serious struggle ” referred to.

Attend, then! Turn the kids out of the armchair, draw up to the fire, and prepare to be thrilled by the ghostly tale of the

Battle of Burnley Barracks.

'Twas a wild night in March, and the early equinoctial hurricane moaned menacingly among the chimney stacks of Manchester. “Just the night for right-wing treachery,” said Al Capone to his — But no, we’ve got the wrong extract. This is the one, from the Communist Review:—

  In the preparations for March 6, the Manchester Working Bureau put forward, among other proposals, that a number of leading comrades should on March 6 lead a march of the workers on to Burnley Barracks, and call on the soldiers in uniform to demonstrate with the workers in the streets. Now, no member of our Party will question the desirability of propaganda amongst the troops. But when it is realised that in Burnley we had not a single Party cell in the mills, that the whole Party membership in Burnley did not muster a dozen members, that there had not been the slightest preparation for mass action of the workers, no preliminary work amongst the soldiers, indeed, that there are no Burnley barrarcks and no soldiers in Burnley, then the absolutely unreal and romantic line of approach by the Bureau can be seen at a glance. Once upon a time, there were barracks in Burnley, but so realistic was the approach of the Manchester leadership to Burnley, that they had not discovered that these barracks had long ago been transformed into slum property.

It is good to learn that, as a result of “ serious struggles,” these comrades finally admitted their mistakes. Let us recollect that it is only as a consequence of similar serious struggles that Don Quixote is known and endeared to us. Perhaps the Manchester Working Bureau’s claim to immortality is greater than his, for whilst the Don mistook real windmills for fictitious giants, they planned a spectacular march upon the non-existent. However, no need for depression. That will come soon enough when they hear of the death of Queen Anne.

W. T Hopley

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.)

Politics First (1968)

Book Review from the April 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Industrial Democracy in Great Britain. edited by K. Coates and A. Topham. Macgibbon and Kee. 63s.

It is insolent of those who idealise industrial action to link this, as Coates and Topham do, with Marx. For Marx held that, necessary and useful as industrial action was, what it could achieve was limited; to end wage slavery the working class should take political action to convert the means of production from class to social property. The industrial side of the class struggle is thus in a sense subsidiary. This book is a collection of writings advocating a greater say in industrial administration for workers on the shop- floor and, frankly, is uninteresting. The authors’ comments are mealy mouthed and in places inaccurate. We are told that lames Connolly “split the old Social Democratic Federation to form a new Socialist Labour Party". This move was in fact an expression of the dissatisfaction of the younger SDF members; it is quite wrong to attribute the founding of the SLP to Connolly. Another sign was the founding in 1904 of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain — not mentioned, of course.

Workers have no special power “at the point of production”. The real seat of power is what controls the government machine and capitalist power rests on their control of this. Industrial action won’t dislodge them. It is significant that Coates and Topham can find nothing to quote on the shop stewards' movement from 1926 to 1935, a period of great unemployment. All the pre-war items on this issue are from members of the so-called Communist Party — Tom Bell. J. T. Murphy. Tom Mann, W. Gallacher, Wal Hannington and Harry Pollitt — thus endorsing the view that at one time the CP was a revolutionary organisation which went off the rails when it embraced parliamentary action after the war. But the CP has always been an opportunistic party, its only principle being to act in accordance with the interests of Russian state capitalism. Thus they called a meeting of shop stewards in April 1940 to protest against the employers using the war as an excuse to attack working conditions. At another meeting in October 1941 the same people were reported as cheering a man who declared “If a man doesn’t pull his weight in war production then, whether he is a labourer or engineer, he should be put in the army". We all know what had happened in between! From 1941 to 1947 the CP supported production drives and this only changed when the wartime alliance broke up. One of the pre-war Communists quoted is J. T. Murphy. Murphy was expelled from the CP in 1932 because he would not accept the slogan “‘stop the transport of munitions"; he wanted "credits for the Soviet Union!" Murphy's following had been built up among engineering workers in eastern Sheffield, an important munition producing area. This incident well shows that the shop steward's following is based on industrial issues. They don't carry their supporters with them when they branch out into politics.

Coates and Topham recognise that democratic control of industry will not work if production is still to be geared to the market (look at the co-ops, they say). They know that for this to be effective the market and money must go. Only they fall for the old stepping stone policy:

Given the establishment of a democratically self-regulating industry in a climate formed and dominated by the market, a struggle will begin between democracy and the market.

Once some people thought that nationalisation was a step to Socialism. All they achieved was to bring certain industries under the collective control of the capitalist class via the state. All this talk about “worker’s control” and industrial democracy will probably have a similar outcome: employers will latch on to it as a stepping stone to involving their workers in production problems—with a view to increasing profits.

Adam Buick

Socialism in Sheffield: The recent by-election. (1930)

From the March 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent by-election in Sheffield would have appeared tragic had it not been so amusing. After a knock-out contest lasting several rounds the Labour nominee emerged into full public view in the form of a local Trade Unionist.

The Communist candidate, J. T. Murphy, also made the most of his local connections and his activities in the shop-stewards' movement during the war. His supporters, however, do not appear to have learned the lesson of the collapse of that movement, but still cling to the "industrial" illusions associated therewith. In the face of experience of the power of the employers on the economic field (as exemplified in rationalisation, etc.), they still swallow the yarn that it is possible to develop a movement which will "take and hold" at the point of production and successfully challenge the armed forces of the nation. Murphy took his stand on the Communist Party's programme of reforms (comically labelled "class against class") and left the basis of Capitalism untouched. He had the easy job of pillorying the failure of the Labour Government to solve the problems afflicting the workers; but in general his remedy was the delightfully vague one of "raising the workers' standard of living." Challenged to explain why the Communist Party had supported the Labour Party at elections over a period of six or seven years he took refuge in the feeble plea that the Labour leaders had been "obliged by circumstances to appear on the side of the workers." From which we reach the conclusion that the Communist Party backed them in 1923 and 1924 because the said leaders "led" the strike of 1926!

This champion of a "disciplined revolutionary international," however, was candid enough to admit that the Communists had maintained their support of the Labour Party "too long." They should, he said, have abandoned that policy immediately after the strike fiasco and not have waited till 1929. He was thereupon challenged to debate with a representative of the S.P.G.B., and this he accepted with the assurance that "he would debate with the devil himself." We cannot promise the workers of Sheffield any display of Mephistophelian fireworks, but the debate may provide them with food for thought.

The Labour nominee's case was so feeble that he dropped seven or eight thousand votes. Tory criticism was directed towards showing that "Socialism" had failed to do anything but add to the numbers of the unemployed, and relatively speaking he got away with the story very well. Possibly on some future occasion the local branch may invite him to explain why two million unemployed exist in Germany, and from three million upwards in the U.S.A., countries which have enjoyed the benefits of "safeguarding" for generations.

The Liberals' case was that the Labour Government needed gingering up, but probably could, with parental supervision, be relied upon to do the right thing. "After all," argued their street corner orators, "it was the Liberals who had made it possible for the Labour Party to experiment in social reform."

The election proved once more the vast amount of propagandist spade-work needed in this reputed "hot-bed of Socialism." We are not greedy! Socialists in Sheffield are invited, nay urged, to come and give a hand in this work.

Eric Boden 

A "Red" Recants (1934)

Book Review from the August 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Preparing for Power. by J. T. Murphy. Jonathan Cape. 6s.

The author above named obtained a certain amount of notoriety in connection with the shop stewards' movement during the war. He became a member of the S.L.P., and sat for a while on the executive until expelled along with MacManus and others for intriguing with the B.S.P. Mr. Murphy states on page 15 of the above volume that the S.L.P. 'merged with the B.S.P." to form the Communist Party. It is pretty common knowledge amongst students of political history during the past twelve years that the S.L.P. maintained a separate existence for several years after the formation of the C.P., and ran its paper, "The Socialist," until 1925 or thereabouts.

After occupying a prominent position in the C.P. the author was expelled from that party about two years ago. Says he: "I therefore determined on a restudy of the history of the working class movement and Marxism. The first result was my decision to join the Labour Party as the mass political party of the workers, to subscribe even to what I regard as errors and mistakes, confident that the dynamics of the class struggle will force the revolutionary changes necessary to the fulfillment of the historic destiny of the working class." Page 16.

He attempts to derive theoretical support for this attitude from the passage in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, which refers to the fact that "the Communists do not form a separate party conflicting with other working class parties." (On page 56 he says this principle conflicts with the present relation of communists to the Labour movement.)

The C.P. have never been consistent in their hostility to the Labour Party, nor is their present attitude based upon any fundamental and revolutionary principle. Nevertheless, it is clear that Murphy has overlooked the point in Engels' preface (quoted from the joint preface to the German edition of 1872) that the political situation has been entirely changed and the progress of history has swept from of the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.

In spite of their limited outlook these parties (such as the Chartists of England) at the time appeared to hold prospects of the conquest of political power for revolutionary objects. Nowhere in the course of this book does the author show that the Labour Party has ever given any such hope. On the contrary, he quotes innumerable examples of the utter subservience of the Labour Party to the interests of the capitalist industrialists, mainly of the Liberal stamp.

So long as the workers had to win the franchise it would have been the height of folly for Marx and Engels to have opposed parties having this as their object. This issue once settled, however, the next step was obviously to set on foot the independent political party of the working class having Socialism as its conscious object.

Apart from the S.P.G.B. no party fulfils this essential condition of independence, least of all the Labour Party.

Writing of the general strike as a weapon (on page 50) Murphy says: "If it is an action to impose terms, whether economic or political, upon the powers that be, then it means an unarmed proletariat faces an armed State, which must either capitulate or defeat the strike." Compare this with his confident declaration in his pamphlet, "The Revolutionary Workers' Government," written while he was still in the C.P. "The general strike demonstrated before our eyes how the working class comes to power." Page 14.

Reviewing its past associations, Murphy repudiates Industrial Unionism (pages 88-90), and shows that the shop stewards' success were confined to local issues of minor importance. "Workers' control of industry is utterly impossible. The change of ownership is a political question, indeed the outstanding political question of our time" (page 159); and he says on the same page that "the central question of the conquest of political power by the working class was entirely overlooked. The shop stewards did not discuss it."

Mr. Murphy is far from having shed all his illusions. He still clings to the notion that Socialism is being built up in Russia (page 69), and objects to the clause in the preamble of the First International (drawn up by Marx) which declares "that the emancipation of labour . . . depends upon the concurrence, practical and theoretical,  of the most advanced countries." This he describes as "a point of view which was completely disproved by the Russian Revolution in 1917." Yet, strange to say, he makes the following confession on page 201: Referring to the second congress of the Third International, held in Moscow during July, 1920, he says: "The writer participated in this congress and was party to its decisions. Thirteen years have passed. Looking back over the experience of these years it appears clear to him that there was an overestimation of the rapidity of the development of the world revolution and a consequent underestimation of the strength of the leaders of the Second International in many countries . . . At the time of the congress itself the revolutionary wave that had swept Europe had already passed its zenith and nobody recognised the fact."

Mr. Murphy means, of course, nobody in the Communist Party. The S.P.G.B. repeatedly stressed the point that no world revolution was possible without a Socialist working class. Mr. Murphy, however, regarded the S.P.G.B. as a "counter-revolutionary" body in 1930. It would be interesting to learn how he regards them now that he has succeeded in persuading Sir Stafford Cripps (God bless him!) to write an introduction to his book. For another illusion which he has not shed is his faith in leaders. "Changes in the leadership of the Labour movement from bottom to top is thus the all-important issue." says he on page 285. One can readily understand why it is all-important to Mr. Murphy.

Eric Boden

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

Why the Communists Have Failed - Parrot Disease (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A malady stalks through Britain—ruthless self-criticism! The serried ranks of the Communist Party have been decimated. From the humblest local official to the most renowned national protagonist, none are safe from its insidious attack. All the tried and trusty slogans, such as "Work or Wages," "Fight like Hell," and "Hands off China," threaten to vanish into obscurity before the parrot-like repetition of this sinister phrase.

Even ten years ago it seemed inevitable that something dreadful would happen to the British recipients of Russian money; and here, at long last, it has. The Slavonic vice of introspection has followed in the wake of the rouble, and displaced the good old Teutonic virtue of which they used to boast—Solidarity!

Ten years ago when carping critics—such as are to be found in the S.P.G.B.—tried to point out to the romantic worshippers of Lenin the obstacles and dangers in the way of any attempt to adopt his policy in this country, they were waived aside as beneath contempt. Was not the German revolution already in progress and would not Britain inevitably follow suit? But now!

Dangers to Right of them, danger to Left of them, dangers all around them, dangers inside them! Such is the state of affairs revealed by "ruthless self-criticism." Pick up almost any copy of the Daily Worker and then ask yourself how any member of the Politbureau manages to get a night's sleep. Take this, for example, from the issue of May 3rd; "Since the 10th Plenum, particularly, the Party leadership has made the grave error of not conducting a relentless struggle against the right elements in the Party who—and this is significant—have been strongest in the mining areas, particularly in South Wales." In other words, even some of their own members evidently realise the absurdity of telling workers to "Fight like hell" on empty bellies.

Further, "The Party's mistake in supporting Cook has materially contributed to the unsatisfactory state of the mining campaign. Cook's whole line, which had the full support of the Party, was to work within the apparatus of the M.F.G.B.; to work wholly from within the narrow circle of the trade union bureaucracy, while he deceived the Party with the illusion that he was preparing for an open break with the bureaucracy."

"He headed the fight at a certain period only to betray it more effectively." We of the S.P.G.B. never credited Cook with so much brains as to be able to think that out, nor have we come across evidence that he was ever more than a weak, emotional "hero" who found the forces of capitalism too strong for him. We did, however, point out at the time the childish futility of this nationalisation - cum - rationalisation campaign (supported by the Communist Party), and the sheer folly of trusting the miners' case to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.

The Communist Party, however, self-styled "leaders off the masses in the daily struggle" discovers its error four years after the event and straightaway puts on sackcloth and ashes. That is "the new line"! A veritable clothes-line upon which the Party's dirty linen is to be publicly hung out to dry. Well may they tell us now that "the Leadership that the Party achieved in the 1926 struggle has been dissipated through lack of understanding of the objective character of the coal situation," and that in the principal industrial areas "the May Day demonstrations cannot be described as other than a complete failure." (Daily Worker, May 17th.)

Mr. J.T. Murphy (see issue of May 19th) has discovered the "necessity of study"!

This, from one of those who told us ten years ago that the time for propaganda even, let alone study, had gone by, and that "now ia the time for action"! "Theoretical study," he says, "is an essential part of practical work, and those who try to set them one against the other have not yet learnt the first lesson of Bolshevism."

Evidently, the state of the Communist Party in this respect leaves much to be desired, for he proceeds: "It is too often assumed the changing of the Executive of the party settled the question of the Right danger. No greater mistake could be made than to encourage this idea. That was only a beginning . . . the transformation of the whole Party into a real Bolshevik Party is a much bigger job, involving not only a complete change in methods of work, but a deep and thorough understanding by the Party of the reasons for the changes and the methods that have to be employed." In short, after telling us for ten years that all we had to do was to fall in and follow them, they confess to not having been a "real Bolshevik Party" at all, and have just awakened to the necessity of having something firm upon which to place their intellectual feet.

Twenty-six years ago the founders of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, drawn from the obscure rank and file of the working class (bricklayers, compositors, cabinet-makers, day labourers and out-of-works) with never an "intellectual," so-called, among them, framed a set of principles. These had been derived from the scientific examination of working class experience. They have always been open for inspection and outside critics have been freely challenged to do their worst. They form the basis of the party's existence.

We do not claim to be infallible. There are mistakes that any Socialist may make, being but human; but there are mistakes which no Socialist does make because he understands the position of the working class. Under this latter heading we place the "mistakes" of the Communist Party. Nothing but blindness to the plain lessons of the workers' history and the everyday facts of the workers' loves can account for them. No eloquent orators nor brilliant dictators can replace the need for learning those lessons and facing those facts—and the leaders of the C.P. in this country are anything but brilliant.

having stifled criticism where possible—as in Russia—and ignored it elsewhere, the would-be dictators have gone from blunder to blunder, piling up disappointments upon one another for their easy followers, until at length even they feel the need for some explanation for the never-ending series of defeats. Democratic criticism is as incompatible with dictatorship as oil is with water. hence the dictators must criticise themselves! Their followers can be trusted to swallow the dope.

Dictatorships are supposed by their admirers to secure unity; but the superficial unity secured by suppression, as practised by the C.P., merely cloaks the ceaseless passing of the dictators from left to right in the endeavour to preserve the balance of their power.

Instead of a consistent policy arising logically from a set of principles intelligible to all the members of the Party, the dictators have as many policies or "lines: as there are days in the week and use them to play off their supporters against each other. Divided, either by material interests or sheer ignorance, these latter are an easy prey. Each change of policy appears either to one section or another to be the long-looked-for resurrection of the Party, the evidence of new-life. By the time this section has spent its force and enthusiasm it is time for another change. And so the game goes on.

In economically backward countries—such as Russia—where the peasantry form such a large proportion of the population, this political fluctuation has some kind of meaning; it is rooted in, and, therefore, explained by the conditions. In this country, where the overwhelming mass of the population are wage-slaves with a common interest in abolishing capitalism, would-be dictators are merely ridiculous.

The remedy in Russia is economic development which proceeds, now with the assistance of the Bolsheviks, and now in spite of them. In Britain the remedy lies in Socialist education. The economic conditions are ripe for Socialism. What the workers lack is knowledge of the fact!

Eric Boden