The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920 Also by David Renton RED SHIRTS AND BLACK: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Oxford in the ‘Thirties FASCISM: Theory and Practice FASCISM, ANTI-FASCISM AND BRITAIN IN THE 1940s THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: A Century of Wars and Revolutions? (with Keith Flett) SOCIALISM IN LIVERPOOL: Episodes in a History of Working-Class Struggle THIS ROUGH GAME: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in European History MARX ON GLOBALISATION CLASSICAL MARXISM: Socialist Theory and the Second International The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920 James Eaden and David Renton © James Eaden and David Renton 2002 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-94968-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 978-1-349-42709-3 ISBN 978-1-4039-0722-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781403907226 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eaden, James, 1957– The Communist Party of Great Britain since 1920 / James Eaden and David Renton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Communist Party of Great Britain–History–20th century. I. Renton, David. II.Title. JN1129.C62 E34 2002 324.241’0975’09–dc21 2001058053 10987654321 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction: the Rise and Decline of British Bolshevism ix Primary sources xii Secondary sources xii 1 High Hopes: 1920–28 1 Before the Bolsheviks 2 Foundation 7 Bolshevisation 15 International 19 General Strike 24 Left turn 31 2 The Zig-Zag Left: 1928–39 36 Isolation and the new line 37 Challenges – right and left 42 The line changes (1) 45 The line changes (2) 50 Cable Street 57 Aid Spain 60 Moscow Trials 65 3 The Party at War: its Finest Hour? 69 Imperialist war: ‘what are we fighting for?’ 70 ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’: putting the line into practice 75 What sort of party? 81 June 1941: all change 84 ‘The issue is clear: victory over the fascist barbarians …’ 85 ‘Everything for the Front must be the rallying call …’ 87 The electoral truce 91 Conclusion 96 4 Past its Peak: 1945–56 98 Revolutionaries and labour 101 The Cold War (1) 104 The party in crisis 108 The Cold War (2) 113 v vi Contents 5 The Monolith Cracks: 1956–68 118 The New Left 122 The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 124 Building in the unions 127 Moscow or Peking? 135 Party life in the 1960s 136 The parliamentary road 138 Conclusion 142 6 Not Fade Away: from 1968 to Dissolution 143 Street-fighting man: students and the anti-Vietnam War protests 146 The British Disease: industrial militancy 150 Up against the law: fighting the Industrial Relations Act 155 White-collar workers 158 Labour in office 161 Anti-racism and anti-fascism: missing the boat 165 Gramsci, Eurocommunism and Marxism Today 168 The rise and fall of Bennism 172 Death throes 174 Dissolution and aftermath 179 7 Conclusion 184 Notes 188 Bibliography 212 Index 215 Acknowledgements We have both been thinking over the themes of this book for some years. Like so many young socialists of our generation both of us had early encounters with British Communists. Dave Renton was studying for his A-levels when he first met and was enthused by Raphael Samuel, the Communist historian and a co-founder of the New Left. James Eaden was taught as an undergraduate by Margaret Morris, a Communist Party member and labour historian. In the process of writing this book, we have drawn on the encour- agement and advice of many in the socialist and trade union move- ment, particularly from members of the Socialist Workers Party with whom we have both worked over the years and whose generous support and sharp criticism have helped us develop many of the insights and much of the analysis in the book. We would also thank the numerous British Communists who we have met over the years, both as activists within the socialist movement and in the research of this book. Despite our often sharp disagreements, they like us are motivated by a desire to rid the world of the poverty, war and crisis endemic to capitalism. Chris Bambery, Ian Birchall, Ralph Darlington, Shaun Doherty, Keith Flett, Gareth Jenkins, John McIlroy, Steve Silver and Sean Vernell have each read and commented on sections of the text. The help of all those listed above has been invaluable, but we remain responsible for any errors made along the way. Alison Howson at Palgrave was extremely helpful, and provided us with an anonymous reviewer who made many valuable suggestions on an early draft of the text. David Orr of Edge Hill contributed to our practical research in the Public Records Office in London. We have also received valuable assistance from archivists and library staff working in the British Library, the British Newspaper Library in Colindale, the National Museum of Labour History and the Working-Class Movement Library in Salford. We were given an opportunity to air the ideas behind the book in a public forum at a meeting held in spring 2000 at the Institute of Historical Research under the auspices of the London Socialist Historicans’ Group and would like to thank the organisers and partici- pants of that event. vii viii Acknowledgements Dave Renton would like to thank his colleagues at work, including Roger Spalding who provided several useful leads, and Chris Parker. In a cash-strapped department within one of the worst-funded of all the colleges of Higher Education, Dave was encouraged to take up research leave, and facility time with the union. Chris was the kindest and most supportive head of department that anyone could hope for. Above all Dave would like to thank Anne Alexander for her advice, encourage- ment and much love. James Eaden would like to thank teaching colleagues and students past and present for stimulus and encouragement, and especially Jeannie Robinson whose love, support and critical reading of the text has made it possible. Introduction: the Rise and Decline of British Bolshevism The history of the Communist Party of Great Britain followed the tra- jectory of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union. Its formation was influenced by the experience of October 1917. The degeneration of the Soviet state and the rise of Stalinism directly affected its political practice. And the final collapse of the party coincided with the break- up of the USSR. At its birth, in 1920, the party brought together members of the generation of working-class militants who had stood out against the First World War. One such figure was J. T. Murphy, a leader of the Shop Stewards’ Movement in Sheffield; another was Arthur Horner, a former member of the South Wales Miners’ Unofficial Reform Movement and a volunteer in James Connolly’s Irish Citizens’ Army. From 1929, the chairman of the party was Harry Pollitt, an activist in the Boilermakers’ Union and an important figure in the 1919 strike which stopped the Jolly George, a ship bound for Poland with weapons to use against the Red Army. Rajani Palme Dutt, who was to become the intellectual mentor of many British Communists, had spent a year in jail as a conscientious objector during the war.1 This generation of militants joined the Communist Party not only because they hated the war, but also because they were inspired by the example of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and wanted workers to seize power in Britain. The willingness of revolutionaries in Britain and elsewhere to follow the example of the Bolsheviks was matched by the eagerness of the early Soviet leadership to spread the revolution. For Lenin and Trotsky spreading the revolution was not some optional extra. The move to begin the October revolution in relatively backward Russia was predi- cated on the hope that revolution would spread to the more advanced capitalist west. To further this aim the leaders of the Russian Communist Party set up the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919 with the specific aim of establishing Communist parties across the world and encouraging workers’ revolution. Despite revolutionary militancy and workers’ uprisings in a number of European countries in the years following 1917, revolutions on the Russian model did not follow, and the Soviet State, exhausted by a destructive civil war, was ix x Introduction to remain isolated. The working class which had been at the heart of the 1917 revolution in the cities was decimated, and the organs of democratic self-government, the soviets, were bureaucratised, even as the Bolshevik party found itself ruling Soviet Russia in the name of working-class revolution.