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The Best of All Possible Worlds?: the Ideology and Practice of British The Best of all Possible Worlds?; The Ideology and Practice of British Communism in the Cold War, 1953-1961 Glyn Powell University College London A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment to the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of London Department of History University College London March 2001 ProQuest Number: U643364 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U643364 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Acknowledgements Supervisor at University College London History Department: Dr E.B. Halpern Colleagues on the project, ‘Consensus or Coercion?: The State, the People and Social Cohesion in Post-War Britain’: Zoe Doye, Lawrence Black, Michael Dawswell, Julia Drake, Andy Homer, John Jenkins Dedicated to my son, Sam 13 October 1982 to 2 February 2001 Abstract This thesis examines the ideology and practice of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in the 1950s. Ever since its formation, the CPGB had adhered to, and modelled itself upon, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Party transformed from its revolutionary ideology and practice towards representing state dictatorship under Stalin. This transformation from Bolshevism to Stalinism had profound implications for the British Party. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, British Communism embarked upon a process of dé­ stalinisation; a process accelerated by the speech of First Secretary Khruschev to the 20^ Congress of the Soviet Party in February 1956. This period coincided with a general decline in British Party membership and with an increased emphasis on electoral practice. Two contradictions emerged as the CPGB attempted to reconcile the socialist and revolutionary aspirations of its membership with the practices of Stalinism and this concentration on elections. These socialist aspirations were undermined by Khruschev’s revelations about Stalin’s ‘crimes’ and his own regime’s intervention in Flungary at the end of 1956. Members’ response to 1956 threatened to damage the Party beyond repair. A disparate opposition emerged in 1956, but never coordinated into a coherent challenge to the leadership. The continuing loyalty of the majority of members, combined with an increase in industrial, unrest during this period, to reverse the sudden decline in membership precipitated by 1956. In 1957, the Party rescued itself, partly through intervention within the trade union rank and file. In parallel with this rank and file level activity, the Party had, since its formation, operated a strategy which sought to place members into the leadership of the trade unions. The thesis demonstrates the limitations and the damaging implications of this leadership strategy as it examines Communist intervention into the Electrical Trades Union. Table of Contents Introduction Bolshevism, Stalinism and British Communism 8 Structure, agency and problems in Communist history 12 Leninism and Bolshevism 20 From Leninism to Stalinism 23 Continuity and Discontinuity 26 Chapter 1 Communists or Cold Warriors? 36 Bolshevism, the Comintern and the CPGB 40 From Class against Class to Popular Front 46 The CPGB; war and post-war 52 British theoretical limitations and the effects of Stalinism 55 The habits of adhesion 56 Three questions about British Communism 58 Loyalty, discipline and the recognition of political reality 64 Chapter 2 Bullets in the East, Ballots in the West 72 Stalin’s death 75 The response to state terror 78 A process of absolution? 81 The long-term decline of British Communism 83 Criteria of Decline 87 Chapter 3 1956: Revelation, Counter-Revolution and the Response of British Communism 98 Revelation from above 100 Confused reactions 105 The Congress of the CPGB 109 After the 24‘^ Congress 114 ‘By hand or by brain’ - false dichotomy? 118 Revolution from below 121 Chapter 4 Managing the Crisis: The leadership and its critics, March 1956 to April 1957 125 The diffuse political focus of the opposition 127 The consequences of The Reasoner 132 The 25**’ ‘Special’ Congress 142 A heterogeneous monolith? Democracy and the CPGB 144 Chapter 5 Responding to Criticism 152 A challenge to Stalinism or co-option of dissent? 156 Confronting the demon 159 Oppositionist attempts at coordination 161 An inconvenient history 165 New formations 170 Chapter 6 Trade Unionism and Communist Politics 176 Trade union intervention: Class against Class to the post-War period 179 Anti-Communism 186 The politics of productivity’ 190 I rade union bureaucrats or tribunes of the people? 194 Unity and the danger of ‘liquidation’ 199 Rank and filism 200 The targeting of the ETU 202 Chapter 7 Turning off the Power: The Debacle in the ETU 206 Against the odds 209 Rank and file rancour or Cold-War campaign? 211 How the anti-Communists mobilised 214 Power and purpose 218 From propaganda to conflict 221 A war of words 227 Raising the temperature 229 Chapter 8 Turning off the Power II 233 Communist trade unionists as bureaucrats 234 The consequences of bureaucratic leadership 240 The ETU Committee of Inquiry 245 Further bureaucratic iniquities 248 The reaction 252 Political leadership and bureaucratic power 255 Conclusion 257 Bibliography 263 List of Tables Table 1 CPGB membership and electoral performance, 1920-1935 46 Table 2 CPGB membership and electoral performance, 1935-1951 47 Table 3 Membership and Daily Worker Sales, 1950-1956 88 Table 4 Figures for the 1950 General Election 89 Table 5 General Election October, 1951 90 Table 6 Communist Party candidates in three constituencies in 1945 and 1955 91 Table 7 Composition of the Commission on Inner Party Democracy 157 Table 8 Occupational Composition of National Congresses, 1952-1963 172 Table 9 Productivity growth in Britain between 1947 and 1954 192 Introduction Bolshevism, Stalinism and British Communism the consensus posited an uncomplicated conclusion; No meaningful differences or discontinuity existed between Bolshevism and Stalinism, ...for twenty years this historical interpretation was axiomatic in almost all scholarly works on Soviet history and politics. It prevails even today.^ The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) existed throughout as a contradictory political phenomenon. This statement is not the predication of a retreat into the sort of historical relativism which refuses to define either what this organisation was, or what it was not. It is, rather, the only possible description of a party populated with militant socialists, perceived as the repository of the revolutionary Marxist tradition but which, throughout most of its existence, adhered persistently to one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. This thesis identifies a number of contradictions within the ideology and practice of British Communism, but it was this particular conflict between socialism and Stalinism that proved both the most influential and the most destructive. Adherence to Stalinism was a product of the CPGB’s particular historical genesis, its leadership’s persistent misrepresentation about the realities of Soviet life and finally, the need for members to sustain their activity through reference to a model of existing socialism. The fact that members required the sustenance of Moscow was not only the product of theoretical shortcomings, it also contributed to them. What Edward Thompson described as ‘the Monolith’ which ‘has droned on in a dogmatic monotone’ both replaced the need for, and inhibited and disfigured, the application of Marx’s theories to British circumstances, but also precluded meaningful analysis of the Soviet Union and its post-revolutionary development.^ The British Party was not alone in this. Until 1943, it was part of something akin to a world-wide Communist Party, guided and directed by Moscow through the auspices of the Third International.^ Following 1943, even the nominal aspirations about world revolution implied by the existence of the Comintern, were jettisoned when Stalin sacrificed it to diplomatic and military expediency."* ^ Stephen F. Cohen, Rethinking the Soviet Experience. Politics and History since 1917 (Oxford, 1985), 39. E.P. Thompson, ‘Winter Wheat in Omsk’, World News. 3:30 (30 June 1956) 408. ^ Constituted Moscow, March 1919. "* The Third International (Comintern) was replaced by the Communist Information Bureau (Cpminform) in September 1947. Zhdanov posited a model of the world divided into two camps of Socialism and Capitalism. Cominform included the Eastern European Communist Parties and France and Italy. The CPGB was excluded. Western Communist Parties retained allegiance to Moscow, but the combined effects of the Comintern’s dissolution and the Cold War’s iron curtain left them ideological refugees in a Stalinist diaspora. At Moscow, Yalta and Potsdam, as Stalin accepted the diplomatic reality of spheres of influence’, even the nominal concept of a single world revolutionary party was vetoed.® Western parties began a process of acculturation to their respective national political environments. Some, such as the French and Italian Parties, adapted
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