MARXISM TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1978 287 Early Communist Strategy for Britain: An Assessment Monty Johnstone (The following is an abridged version of a paper given to the Conference on the History of the Communist Party organised in London on May 20-21 by the Party's History Group.)

The Communist Party of Great Britain was of the struggle of the proletariat". Such workers" born under the impetus of the great October councils would be set up in opposition to the exist­ Revolution and of the revolutionary wave which ing state apparatus with Parliament at its head in shook Europe at the end of the first world war bourgeois democratic countries. They would con­ and which, in 1919, brought into existence the stitute a form of dual power challenging that state Third—Communist—International. It was formed apparatus and ultimately replacing it in a revolu­ out of a fusion of a number of small revolutionary tion led by the Communist Party. Their establish­ Marxist and semi-Marxist organisations, for whom ment as organs of state power would entail "the the ushered in a period of unification of the legislative and executive authori­ world socialist revolution that would bring the ties" and "the substitution of production units, establishment of working class political power in like the factories and works, for the territorial Britain. They had been working over the years electoral constituencies".1 Until the second world through thick and thin to win the British workers war this remained our Party's strategic aim. How­ for such an objective. They now saw this, with an ever, the degree of immediacy with which its understandable surfeit of optimism, as already on realisation was posed differed from period to the horizon. period.

National Convention Assessing the Labour Party The National Convention to establish the Com­ Whilst the Unity Convention of 1920 was munist Party was summoned in 1920 by a joint unanimous in its acceptance of these fundamental provisional committee representing the British principles there were two other issues which were , the Communist Unity Group and seen at the time as of subsidiary tactical sig­ the South Wales Communist Council. In its nificance, but which, in fact, assumed an import­ circular of invitation it specified three "funda­ ance which gave them strategic status. The first mental bases of Communist unity: (a) The Dictator­ was the question of participation in elections; the ship of the working class; (b) The System; second was the problem, that is still with us today, (c) The Third International". These had already of our relationship with and attitude to the Labour been described by Lenin as the cardinal principles Party. On both these questions the advice of of the international Communist movement. In the Lenin was of considerable importance in over­ call for a Communist Party that accompanied the coming deep-rooted sectarian views in the young invitation to the Unity Convention, there was Communist Party, which flowed from the political emphasised the need for acceptance as an "essential background of some of the groups that formed principle" of the new party of "the Soviet idea as the Party. against Parliamentary democracy, i.e. a structure On elections the Convention decided by 186 making provision for the participation in social votes to 19, as Lenin had recommended, to sup­ administration only of those who render useful port parliamentary and electoral action as a service to the community". valuable means of "propaganda and agitation to­ All the Communist Parties that were formed wards revolution", whilst regarding what they during this period were similarly influenced by the called the "reformist" view that a socialist revolu­ Soviet form of organisation which had been the tion could be achieved through parliament as basis of the October Revolution as well as spread­ absolutely incorrect. It was a question of using the ing to some other European countries and result­ heightened political awareness at the time of elec­ ing in the establishment of short-lived Soviet tions the better to popularise the Communist pro- republics in Bavaria and Hungary in 1919. Lenin and the had come to 1 V. I. Lenin, Selected Works (Moscow/London. believe that Soviets were the "international form 1937), Volume 7, p. 232. 288 TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1978

gramme, indeed the better to denounce the very the better to take them by the throat!), he was parliamentary system under which the elections referring to these leaders rather than to the Labour were being held. And when Communists were Party as an organisation. elected to the bourgeois parliament, they were to use it as a forum from which to counterpose the Electoral Policy conception of a Soviet system to it. The affiliation application to the Labour Party On the attitude to be taken towards the Labour was turned down by a large majority. Discussions Party, the Convention was more evenly divided. between representatives of the two parties broke The Labour Party was in 1920, and remains in down on the Labour leaders' insistence that the 1978 (and I hope I won't be accused of being issue was one of parliamentary democracy versus defeatist if I say it is likely to remain so for the "Soviet dictatorship". But the Communist Party foreseeable future) the mass political organisation still decided that, affiliated or not, it would sup­ based on the British working class, vastly out­ port Labour candidates in constituencies where no numbering the Communist Party or any other Communists were standing. The general view was organisation claiming adherence to . This that Communist candidates should only contest in has always presented British Communists with a limited number of constituencies. This was in problems very different from those which face keeping with Lenin's advice to the Executive Com­ for instance the Communist Parties of France and mittee of the Comintern in January 1922 to adopt Italy. "a thoroughly motivated resolution demanding After a full debate, the Convention decided by from the Communist Party of Great Britain that 100 votes to 85 to apply for affiliation to the all Communists should agitate and vote in elec­ Labour Party. Lenin had emphasised that, as tions for Labour candidates, excluding those distinct from continental social democratic parties, extremely few places where it is certain that voting the Labour Party's federal structure and trade for a Communist will not help the capitalist can­ union affiliations made it important that Com­ didate to win".3 munists should try to become affiliated to it, in the same way as the British Socialist Party, the main Lenin insisted in his "Left Wing" , constituent organisation that had gone into the an Infantile Disorder that the workers learn not Communist Party, had affiliated to it in 1916. The only by propaganda, but by their own political condition that he emphasised for affiliation was experience. Therefore, before they could be won that the Communist Party should be able to over to support the revolutionary line of the Com­ preserve its freedom to criticise the right-wing munists, the workers needed to see in practice the Labour leaders. bankruptcy of the Labour leaders. He believed with that over-optimism, which then characterised Lenin was at this time making an analysis of the world Communist movement, that once the the nature of the Labour Party which distinguished workers had had the experience of a Labour two contradictory elements in it. He told the government they would draw revolutionary con­ Second Congress of the Communist International clusions. Although this has still not happened in 1920: "Of course for the most part the Labour despite several unhappy experiences of such Party consists of workers, but it does not logically governments, it does not invalidate the basic point follow from this that every workers' party which stressed by Lenin that Labour workers have first consists of workers is at the same time a 'political got to convince themselves in practice of the workers' party', that depends upon who leads it, inadequacy of reformist governments before they upon the content of its activities and of its political can be expected to change their outlook. tactics. Only the latter determines whether it is really a political proletarian party. From this point of view . . . the Labour Party is not a political National Left Wing Movement workers' party but a thoroughly bourgeois party, Lenin himself, to the best of my knowledge, was because, although it consists of workers, it is led never explicit on whether or not a transformation 2 by reactionaries." He saw the job of the Com­ of the Labour Party could be envisaged. However, munists to act as an autonomous revolutionary in these early years of the Party, British Com­ body inside the Labour Party seeking to win the munists voiced different views on this question. At support of its members against these "reac­ the Sixth (Manchester) Conference of the Party in tionaries". When he used the famous phrase about May 1924, in his Chairman's address, William supporting Labour as the rope supports the hang­ Gallacher expressed what was then the majority ing man (which Tommy Jackson infelicitously adapted to taking the Labour leaders by the hand 3 Quoted from Comintern archives by B. N. Pono- maryov in World Marxist Review, February 1969, -Lenin on Britain (London, 1934), p. 267. p. 3. , SEPTEMBER, 1978 289

view "The Communist Party does not attack the opening in Britain, would compel the revolutionary Labour Party." The Communist Party must strive movement "to sweep away the old machinery and all the time to make the Labour Party a useful replace it with new forms . . . breaking the political organ of the workers in the struggle against organs of the old system and forcing forward the , but we do attack the leadership of new organs". He saw these organs growing out of the Labour Party and will go on attacking it the new structure of the movement until the labour movement has forced it, either emerging "while capitalism is driving the industrial to prosecute a working class policy or to make struggle of the workers towards a political up­ way for a leadership that will do so." The resolu­ rising". He went on to refer specifically to the tion passed by the conference on relations with General Council of the TUC which "represents a the Labour Party stated: "The Communist Party move towards concentration and centralisation of considers it its duty to enter into the ranks of the class power" and the trades councils which, as in Labour Party in order to strengthen the militant the 'Hands off Movement' in 1920, were and fighting elements of the labour movement, and already setting up Councils of Action. "Thus, to unmask the treacherous elements in the Labour locally and nationally, there are in existence the Party and free the workers from their influence." rudiments of a new political structure with all its Early the next year R. Palme Dutt made a roots in the productive and distributive processes different assessment in an article in The Com­ related to the control of the means of human munist International, insisting that the role of the existence," he contended. Any serious industrial Communist Party was "to replace the failure and struggle must inevitably lead to open conflict with decomposition of the Labour Party". He was the state, culminating in "a trial of strength answered by J. T. Murphy, another member of the between the old political methods of capitalism Party leadership of the period, who rejected Dutt's and the new political instrument of the masses talk of the disintegration of the Labour Party at a based upon their industrial organisation". The time when it was growing. The job, he argued, influence of the Communist Party would be "over­ was to revolutionise the Labour Party by replacing whelming, during such an upheaval, because it is right-wing leaders by left-wingers and Communists. the only political organisation in the country that builds up its most important sections inside the The General Strike—A Crucial Test workshops". The more open the class struggle became, the more readily would the masses In November 1925 the first National Left "realise the emptiness of parliamentary demo­ Wing Conference was held with , Joe cracy" and the more determination would they Vaughan (Labour Party), Joseph Southall (ILP) show "in securing their needs over the heads of and William Paul (the Communist editor of the parliamentary obstacles, by creating their own Sunday Worker founded early that year and governmental machinery". claiming a circulation approaching 100,000). The declared aim was "not to supersede the Labour The General Strike was a crucial test of the Party but to 'remould it nearer to the heart's viability of such a strategy. It was the only time desire' of the rank and file". The National Left in the Party's history when there have appeared Wing Movement which was to emerge was charac­ the main elements which were believed to favour terised by close and fruitful co-operation between the perspective of a Soviet-type revolution as the Communists and the increasing numbers of expounded so plausibly by William Paul on the Labour Party members moving to the left, for eve of the General Strike—and still advanced, but more than two years following its formation in with much less credibility, by those latter day September 1926. Bourbons of the various leftist organisations who The main attempt to outline British Communist have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing from strategy in this period was made by William Paul the last half century. in The Path to Power. First published by the Party in October 1924, a new expanded edition was Councils of Action brought out a year later, after "Red Friday", Whilst Councils of Action did emerge and play anticipating the forthcoming struggle that was to an important role in the strike, they nowhere shake Britain in May 1926 in the shape of the assumed the shape of a new political structure General Strike. The pamphlet was an amplifica­ which could be counterposed to and eventually tion in contemporary British terms of the strategy replace the parliamentary forms of national politi­ of a Soviet road to socialism, although Paul was cal representation. The Party acted in keeping with careful to avoid the Russian word and to proceed the realities of the situation, which meant shelving from British rather than Russian premises. He the strategy that had been considered in advance argued that the "final struggle between the old and to be appropriate to this sort of class confronta­ the new", the beginning of which he now saw tion. Hence its three main demands in the strike 290 MARXISM TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1978

were: (1) full support for the miners behind "incapable of uniform centralised direction". The A.J. Cook's slogan "Not a penny off the pay, not article, reprinted as a pamphlet, drew conclusions a second on the day"; (2) the nationalisation of that contained the seeds of the ultra-left 'New the mines without compensation and under Line' that was to emerge in 1928 and 1929. workers' control; (3) a Labour government. In the autumn of 1927 the Comintern Executive Lecturing on this period in 1952, John Mahon sent a message to the Ninth CPGB Congress observed: "The Communist Party in 1926 never suggesting a review of tactics in relation to the thought out what the situation would be if the Labour Party. It did not arrive in time for the Party's demands were followed. It failed to clarify congress, but the leaders of the International dis­ its perspective. We all saw the cussed it informally with and other a-> a model with the idea of Soviets and insurrec­ British Party leaders who were in Moscow in tion, but we did not declare this to the workers in November and December. A debate on "the the strike, to whom we offered no real political English Question" was fixed for the Executive's perspective." It was to be another twenty-five years ninth plenum in February 1928. before the Party was to provide the first draft of The thesis of the majority of the British Party's a realistic perspective which attempted to link Central Committee was argued at the plenum by immediate industrial struggles and electoral objec­ J. R. Campbell, who showed that mass support tives with a long-term advance to socialism. was increasing for the Labour Party at the expense of the old capitalist parties. It envisaged that the Sectarian Turn Party should continue to work for the return of a The positions actually adopted by the Party in Labour Government in accordance with the tactic the General Strike constituted a tacit recognition elaborated by Lenin. The minority thesis of Dutt of the untenability of the strategic presuppositions and Pollitt, with Page Arnot as its main spokes­ to which it had subscribed. The tragedy was that, man at the plenum, argued that conditions had instead of leading the Party to revise this strategy changed since Lenin gave his advice and that since along more realistic lines, the experience of the 1924 the Labour Party had become increasingly a strike prepared the ground for the Party's entry "coalition party of the ", which it was into the most sterile and sectarian period of its the duty of the Communist Party to oppose. The history. Plenum largely accepted the line of the British The reasons for this are to be found in a com­ minority in its final resolution, which was adopted bination of national and international factors. unanimously. Specifically, it involved a linking up of the sec­ tarian reaction of a minority of the leadership to "Revolutionary Workers' Government" the betrayal by the General Council (in the first The resolution declared that it was necessary for instance Dutt whose 1925 views on the Labour the British Party to "change its attitude towards Party were now pushed much further) with the the Labour Party and the Labour Government and "third period" left sectarian turn of the Com­ consequently to replace the slogan of the Labour munist International whose high-powered inter­ Government by the slogan of the Revolutionary vention helped to turn this minority (six members Workers' Government". The new slogan lacked of the CPGB's Central Committee as against any basis in British reality. sixteen) into a majority in the course of debates in That summer the Sixth Congress of the Comin­ 4 Moscow and two Party congresses in 1929. tern approved a new sectarian strategy under the Writing in The Communist International of June slogan of " Class against Class". It laid the basis 1926 on "The Meaning of the General Strike", for the "third period", which European capitalism Dutt counterposed a mass Communist Party to the had allegedly now entered, marking a further acute Labour Party. The reformist leaders were respon­ aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism sible for the collapse of 1926 and it was necessary (confirmed by the world economic crisis) and a to "fight to drive them out of the working class consequent "radicalisation of the masses", who it movement". The Labour leaders were "rotten to was wrongly assumed would take the path to the core with reformism and parliamentarism and revolution. therefore incapable of giving any leadership to The congress adopted the Programme of the the class struggle of the workers save to betray it," Communist International, in which Social Demo­ and the Labour Party's federal structure made it cracy was described not only as counter-revolu­ tionary, but also as playing "a Fascist role in 4 The complex relationship between the internal periods when the situation is critical for capital­ and international forces involved is discussed in my ism". From this was to develop the increasingly article "The Communist Party in the 1920s", frequent characterisation of Social Democratic Review, No. 41 (January-February 1967), pp. 47-63. parties and governments as "Social Fascist". The MARXISM TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1978 291

left-wing Social Democrats were described by the report and the decision was taken to launch the programme as "the most dangerous faction of the Daily Worker on January 1, 1930. The victory of Social Democratic parties". the 'New Line' was completed with only twelve of the members of the old Central Committee being Disastrous Effects re-elected under a panel system, which for the first The application of this "New Line" was to have time replaced the "free elections" about which the particularly disastrous effects on the development Comintern Presidium had written to the Party of the National Left Wing Movement in Britain. expressing its disapproval. The political keynote The May 1927 plenum of the Comintern Execu­ of the congress was given in a resolution stressing tive had recognised that it had an important role the need to step up the fight against the new to play in attempting to make the Labour Party Labour government which had "already begun to into "a more effective instrument of working class show clearly its Social Fascist character, namely a struggle". At the second conference of the Move­ policy of Fascism and violent repression of the ment in September 1927 there were 163 delegates working class, concealed by legal, democratic and from 54 local Labour Parties and 40 left-wing Socialist phraseology". At the same time the pay­ groups representing in all, it was claimed, about ment of the Political Levy to the Labour Party 150,000 people. In South Wales the Movement was was opposed, as was the idea of continuing to seek achieving important electoral successes with its affiliation to it. candidates receiving 64 per cent of the vote in the By the end of 1929 the 'New Line' had secured rural and urban district council elections of 1928. the complete isolation of the party and the decline Support for such a movement appeared suspect of its membership to 3,200 despite the oppor­ to the more extreme supporters of the "New Line" tunities for advance provided by the outbreak of as propounded by Dutt who, in Labour Monthly the world economic crisis that the Communists in January 1929, dubbed the Labour Party as "the had predicted. (After MacDonald's betrayal in third capitalist party" and considered that "the 1931 membership leaped to 6,000.) Sadly, in conception of a socialistic transformation of the August 1930, the Communist Review was to com­ Labour Party needs to be denounced". They ment that "although we have stood on the line of believed that if the National Left Wing Movement the Comintern . . . yet the membership continues were to develop independently it would be in to fall and the Party is still largely isolated from danger of intercepting people who would other­ the masses". wise come into the Communist Party. This reason­ ing led to the Tenth Party Congress in January Trade Union Controversy 1929 passing a resolution by 55 votes to 52— This isolation was acutely felt in the Party's against the opposition of the retiring Central Com­ trade union work, on which Pollitt and Dutt mittee—that Party members should leave the argued opposing views in their contributions to Movement. On Communist initiative it was then discussion prior to the Party's Twelth Congress in decided to disband it—no doubt to the great re­ November 1932. Pollitt wrote in the Daily Worker joicing of Transport House. of August 20: "The Communist Party is for In the General Election of May 1929 the Party's powerful Trade Unionism, is for strengthening the manifesto, entitled "Class against Class", stressed organised power of the workers which they have its opposition to the "capitalist" Labour Party. It built up through their trade unions." Dutt replied stated that where no Communist candidate was in the Daily Worker of September 19: "'For a standing and "where the Labour candidate re­ powerful united Trade Unionism.' For a powerful fuses to pledge himself to a programme of fighting united General Council? ... to speak of 'a power­ for working class demands, the Communist Party ful united Trade Unionism' today means to speak advises the workers not to cast a vote for any of of a powerful united Reformist Trade Unionism. the capitalist candidates, Tory, Liberal or Labour". Does the Communist Party stand for this? Of The 25 Communist candidates obtained 50,000 course not. We stand for a powerful united revolu­ votes compared with 41,000 in 1924 in only six tionary trade union opposition, firmly based on constituencies, whilst the Labour Party, allegedly the Trade Union membership and the lower Trade discredited in the eyes of the "radicalised" workers, Union organs. . . ." increased its vote by nearly 3 million and formed Fortunately Dutt's approach was not followed the government. by the congress. In his political report Harry Pollitt paid special attention to mass work in the "Social Fascist" Labour Government trade unions as part of a "united front with the At the Eleventh Congress from November 30- masses". Without calling into question the Comin­ December 3, 1929, Harry Pollitt, who had become tern line which was for a united front "from General Secretary in August, delivered the main below" excluding the "Social Fascist" leaders, the 292 MARXISM TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1978

congress marked a genuine attempt to overcome 1935 put its seal on the strategic turn in relation to some of the worst aspects of the sectarianism the Labour Party by approving a return to the which resulted from the "third period" strategy. policy of supporting Labour candidates in elec­ tions where no Communist was standing and call­ New Policies, but . . . ing for the return of a Labour Government in the A revision of the strategy itself, which had been forthcoming general election. (Indeed, when the promoted by the Comintern since 1928, was begun election was held in November the Party withdrew on its initiative after Hitler came to power in all but two of its candidates in the interests of January 1933. The next month the Labour and unity and a Labour victory.) Socialist International appealed for a united However, Harry Pollitt asserted unconvincingly struggle against fascism, indicating its readiness to in his report that, although this represented "a big "negotiate with the Communist International with advance in our tactics", it "in no way implies that a view to common action as soon as this body is we were wrong in our class against class tactics in also ready". The Comintern's reply came in its 1929, and that we are now returning to the old line appeal of March 5 recommending the Communist of 1924". The "reason for this change in our elec­ Parties "to approach the Central Committees of toral tactics," he contended, "was dictated by the the Social Democratic Parties belonging to the changed objective situation." That summer the Labour and Socialist International with proposals Party also returned to its pre-1929 position of regarding joint actions against Fascism and against seeking affiliation to the Labour Party. the capitalist offensive". On March 11 the CPGB published a letter to Seventh World Congress the Labour Party, as well as to the ILP and other The Seventh World Congress of the Communist labour movement organisations, in favour of a International in July-August 1935 gave impetus to united campaign for democratic, anti-fascist and the struggle for unity not only of the working class economic demands. Whilst agreement was reached but also for its alliance with wider social forces with the ILP, it was refused by the Labour Party which found its expression in the Popular Fronts on that and subsequent occasions on the grounds in France and Spain. It laid the basis for the sub­ that the Communists did not believe in parlia­ sequent development of Communist strategy in the mentary democracy and majority rule and that it capitalist countries, on which to no small extent was necessary to oppose "the idea of dictatorship, rests our present British Road to Socialism and its Fascist or Communist". conception of a broad democratic alliance. Replying in May 1933 Palme Dutt wrote: "The However, although the Seventh World Congress claim of the Labour Party to stand for democracy represented a big step forward in its attention to is a brazen lie, disproved by its whole record and national conditions and traditions, it did not practice."5 And even the revised edition of his abandon the conception of Soviets as the universal Fascism and Social Revolution appearing in June form of transition to socialism. Thus Dimitrov 1935 still referred to Social Democracy as "Social declared in his famous main report: "Soviet Fascism" and saw it as "an episode which is power and only Soviet power can bring salvation." beginning to draw to its close" (p. 176). The aims (Dimitrov's emphasis.) of Social Democracy and Fascism were the same, In his speech to the congress, Harry Pollitt said: he alleged. "They differ only in their methods" "The Communist Party in its revolutionary agita­ (p. 155). The effect of such statements was not tion and propaganda amongst the workers must only to antagonise those to whom the appeal for popularise its revolutionary programme of Soviet unity was addressed, but to make it appear as power concretely applied to British conditions. . . . The Communist Party does not believe that social­ though there was no real basis for such an appeal 7 anyway except as a means of exposing the "social ism can be achieved through Parliament." traitors" for refusing it. 5 R. P. Dutt, Democracy and Fascism (CPGB, Fortunately, however, better sense was to pre­ 1933), p. 10. Emphasis in original. vail. Whilst Dimitrov in Moscow was from July 6 See Marxism Today, July 1972, p. 209. 1934 privately querying the use of the "Social 7 H. Pollitt, Unity against the National Govern­ Fascist" label,6 in Britain the magnificent united ment. Report of Seventh World Congress Speech actions against fascism, unemployment and the (London, 1935), pp. 23, 27. The editor of Harry Pollitt, reactionary National Government, initiated by Selected Articles and Speeches, Vol. I (London, 1953). deletes the words "its revolutionary programme of the Communists, were breaking down sectarian Soviet power" and substitutes "an adequate pro­ attitudes. gramme" (p. 159), and inserts the word "alone" after "Parliament" (p. 161). Our Party was unfortunately Supporting Labour Again not exempt from the nauseating Stalinist practice of The Party's Thirteenth Congress in February rewriting history. MARXISM TODAY, SEPTEMBER, 1978 293

The perspective to which Harry Pollitt was chances for a relatively peaceful transition to here referring was expounded in For Soviet socialism increase to the extent that stronger inter­ Britain, adopted in February 1935 and presented national socialist forces effectively restrict the free­ as "a special programme for the immediate situa­ dom of action for capitalist counter-revolution. tion in the world". (Introducing the programme at However this recognition does not help us to the Party's Thirteenth Congress, Robin Page evaluate the Party's pre-war perspective of sub­ Arnot noted that " 'Soviet Power' is the general stituting Soviets for Parliament, correctly recog­ slogan today of the Communist International, and nised jn The British Road as "the product of of all its sections, as adopted a year ago at the Britain's historical struggle for democracy". Such Thirteenth Plenary Session" of its Executive.) It a strategy involved the transposition of the forms was also put forward in the Draft Programme of revolutionary struggle and power that had issued in August 1939 for debate and adoption at shown themselves suited to Russia to the very the Party Congress scheduled for October 1939 different conditions of Britain. I believe that (which did not in fact meet due to the situation history has shown them never to have been viable created by the war). This envisaged that workers' in this country as a strategy for advancing to councils would "arise from the conditions of the socialism or desirable as a form of socialist state struggle for power" and would "become the basis power, since the indirect form of national repre­ of the new State power", and referred in support sentation envisaged is less democratic than the of this to the experience of Soviets in Russia and direct election of Parliament by universal suffrage other countries. It retained the Soviet conception established in Britain through popular struggle. of indirect national representation whereby the What was relevant and positive in the Com­ "central popular assembly" that would replace munist Party's early strategy was the rejection of Parliament would not be chosen by the electorate the social democratic conception of a purely as a whole voting in constituencies, but would be parliamentary road and the emphasis on socialist "based on these local councils". The new system revolution replacing the bourgeois state by a new would "disarm the exploiters . . . and deprive them type of working class state power, which would of political rights, so that they cannot harm the be used against all attempts by the defeated work of socialist construction or endeavour to win capitalist minority undemocratically to defy the back power". wishes of the people.8 These were to remain Although by 1951 such a perspective had been important elements in the strategy outlined in The silently dropped several years previously, it was British Road. only in the first edition of The British Road to A long-term strategy broadly similar to that Socialism, the Party's long-term programme, pub­ advanced in The British Road would, I believe, lished that year that it was explicitly repudiated have been more correct in the twenties and thirties (being described there as "a slanderous misrepre­ than that advanced by our Party at the time. Some sentation of our policy" by "the enemies of com­ comrades are disdainful of the "hindsight" in­ munism"). For the first time the bases were com­ volved in making such a judgment. I readily prehensively laid for the Party's present strategy, admit that it is easier to reach such a conclusion envisaging the working people using their political with the knowledge that we today possess than it and industrial strength for "transforming Parlia­ was for our comrades in those days when the ment . . . into the democratic instrument of the whole world Communist movement believed in vast majority of the people" in the struggle against the universal validity of the Soviet road. But capitalism. Even then, as subsequently, however, Marxists are concerned above all to learn the this whole change in strategy was inadequately lessons of history. This requires that we make the thought out and debated theoretically and his­ most effective use of the possibilities of historical torically. It was (and often still is) baldly asserted hindsight now available to us for making a critical that the strategy of the Soviet road had been appraisal and analysis of our own past in its correct before the war, but that "with the new strengths and in its weaknesses. balance in world forces, new paths of advance to socialism are opened up". (No doubt we have here 8 Equally positive was the Party's insistence that an example of the tendency, referred to by Lukacs, "the break-up of the Empire ... is an essential part always to try to present each new stage in Com­ of the struggle for socialism". (J. R. Campbell. munist history as a continuation of the previous Communist Review, September 1924, p. 224.) A parti­ one, and thereby avoid the problem of explaining cularly important role was played by R. Palme Dutt discontinuities.) in promoting understanding of the common interests of the British workers and the colonial peoples. (This important theme did not fall within the terms of Never Suited to Britain reference of my paper, since a separate workshop at It seems to me generally correct to argue that the conference was devoted to it.)